A resident tries to get analogue signal on his TV after the MSO pulled the plug on Tuesday. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Those who are yet to attach set-top boxes to their television sets would miss out on home entertainment.

More than two months after the cable TV digitisation deadline ended in the Patna Municipal Corporation area, operators pulled out the analogue signal plug for pay channels completely on Tuesday.

After multi-system operator (MSO) SITI Maurya Cablenet Private Limited stopped beaming analogue signals on Monday, Darsh Digital Network Private Limited followed suit on Tuesday morning.

The sudden blackout of cable TV transmission baffled residents. “All channels were working fine when I switched on the TV around 8am to watch news. However, I could see none when I tried checking out news a few minutes before leaving for office around 10am,” said Rahul Raj, a resident of Rajeev Nagar.

On Tuesday, an estimated 2 lakh television sets in Patna were estimated to have blanked out owing to complete blocking of analogue signals. Digital set-top boxes have been installed in around 2 lakh sets against an estimated total of 4 lakh TVs in the PMC area.

“We stopped the transmission of analogue signals for all pay channels from Tuesday morning. The decision was taken to adhere to a recent directive from the ministry of information and broadcasting that stated that our licence would be cancelled if we do not stop beaming analogue signals immediately,” said Darsh Digital Network Private Limited director Sushil Kumar.

Thirty-eight cities, including the PMC area in Patna, across the country with a population of over 10 lakh met the deadline for digitisation of cable TV on March 31 midnight.

Later, the cable operators in Patna sought an extension of 45 days in the digitisation deadline from the state government, which was forwarded to the ministry of information and broadcasting.

Local cable operators claimed that a sudden surge in demand of set-top boxes was observed on Monday following the blackout of analogue transmission by SITI Maurya. “Till a few weeks ago, a huge stock of set-top boxes lay idle with us. However, we received numerous calls for installation of the boxes today (Tuesday). In fact, we have now ordered a buffer stock of 500 set-top boxes,” said Rakesh Kumar, the owner of Om Hardware Cable Network, a local cable operator in Kurji.

The maximum price of a set-top box in Patna is Rs 900 and the cable operators can charge an additional amount of Rs 100 as installation charges. Both the MSOs have claimed to be holding sufficient number of set-top boxes.

The state information and public relations department has called a meeting with the MSOs on Wednesday to deliberate on the issues related to digitisation in the capital.