Lakhs of cable homes have missed out on (top) Neymar’s run in the Confederations Cup and journeyman Sergiy Stakhovsky’s shock defeat of Roger Federer at Wimbledon. (AFP)

Roger Federer fan Rajib Sengupta would have liked to see something different on his “television comeback” than Sergiy Stakhovsky teaching FedEx how to play on grass. But he will take that. At least his TV screen wasn’t blank.

“I returned home from work on Wednesday night and switched on the TV after heaven knows how long. Over the next four hours, I watched Federer being spooked while I Googled Stakhovsky on my phone; heard McEnroe and Becker hold forth on Tumbledon, and then returned to sporting sanity by seeing Brazil beat Uruguay. All was well with my world again,” the software engineer said.

Rajib, a resident of south Calcutta, had switched from cable provider Manthan to DTH service Tata Sky just the day before. He made one last call to his cable operator Sukanta Satellite to enquire when the missing ESPN-STAR Sports channels would be back. The if-laden answer helped make up his mind.

“Enough is enough. First came the Uefa Champions League, then the ICC Champions Trophy and now the Confederations Cup and Wimbledon. DD was the saviour during the Champions Trophy but I had missed out on Neymar and Iniesta for a week and did not see Nadal and Sharapova being bundled out of Wimbledon. I pay my subscription regularly, so why should I tolerate such deficiency of service?” Rajib said.

His verdict after two days of direct-to-home service? “DTH beats cable 6-0, 6-0, 6-0!”

He is not the only one. Lakhs of cable homes across Calcutta are caught in the blackmail game between broadcasters and multi-system operators in the middle of some major sports events.

Channels had started disappearing from TVs about a month ago with broadcasters switching off signals to defaulting cable service providers. Worse, there wasn’t anybody the subscribers could turn to for redress.

For the vast majority of cable subscribers, digitisation has so far meant only an appendage in the form of a set-top box and slightly better picture quality. The objective of switching from analogue to digital — pay for what you watch — remains unfulfilled.

A fallout of digital channels being yanked off cable bouquets is the spurt in the sale of costlier Tata Sky, Dish TV and Airtel Digital TV services. Industry sources peg the increase at close to 50 per cent.

Cable service providers losing subscribers to DTH have done little to stem the exodus. “My Siti Cable franchisee seems to have no idea what is going on. He told me two days ago that all the missing channels would come back but I know that they won’t until I subscribe to a package, which he is unable to provide,” rued Kunal Sengupta of Purbachal, Kasba.

“My cable guy has stopped taking calls,” said Aviroop Dutta of CA Block in Salt Lake.

“My operator hasn’t even come to collect the monthly subscription for two months. I don’t know who to approach for a package so that I get back the movie and news channels that I can’t tune in to,” said Subhash Sirkar of Lake Gardens, another Siti subscriber.

Manthan and Siti Cable’s problems are different. While broadcasters have blocked channels on Manthan over unpaid dues, Siti Cable has blanked out premium channels that it says will be available only through packages. The problem is, many franchisees still don’t have the technical expertise to provide custom packages.

The channels missing from the Siti Cable bouquet in many homes include HBO and AXN .

In Manthan’s case, the TEN bouquet of sports channels was blocked by the broadcaster midway through the Uefa Champions League because of outstanding bills. Those channels have returned but ESPN-STAR Sports is still off air.

Channels are disappearing from the bouquets of other city MSOs such as GTPL-KCBPL, Hathway, Digicable and Unicable, too.

Manik Chanda of Swinhoe Lane, a Unicable customer, shifted to DTH three days ago after being unable to watch his favourite English movie and news channels for weeks.

“We used to get about 10 calls for installation per week for Airtel Digital TV. That figure is now close to 15. We expect the number to increase further,” said an executive of Universal Solution, the company that installs Airtel Digital TV in the city.

National, the company contracted to install Tata Sky boxes, said sales had increased since last week.

Industry estimates put the number of digital cable connections in the city at 34 lakh and DTH connections at 7 lakh. But the balance has started to shift.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has asked multi-system operators in the four metros to switch off signals to all set-top boxes against which subscriber application forms have not been submitted. The deadline ends in a fortnight and cable operators who had sold boxes without collecting the required information are still clueless about how to achieve the target.

Are you facing cable trouble? Tell ttmetro@abpmail.com