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The government has cancelled the registrations of 255 MSOs for failing to get their networks audited as per regulatory mandate, apart from failing to respond to official notices.
In an order dated August 24, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting stated: “It has been observed that the scheduled MSOs have failed to provide the requisite clarification/explanation within the stipulated period.
“In view of the above and in exercise of powers conferred under Section 4(7) of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995, the MSO registrations of the scheduled MSOs are hereby cancelled with immediate effect.”
Any appeal against the government order could be made with MIB Secretary Apurva Chandra within 30 days of the order issue-date.
“One of the terms and conditions of the MSO registration was that MSOs…were also required to submit a list of their subscribers and other details as per the requests made by the Ministry from time to time,” the MIB said, adding the defaulting MSOs failed to seed data within the stipulated time.
According to Regulation l5(l) of the interconnection rules of 2017, it is mandatory for every distributor of TV channels to conduct an audit of their systems, including subscriber base, annually.
The MIB order stated that as per information shared by broadcast regulator TRAI, some MSOs had not conducted audits of their systems for the calendar years 2021 and 2022.
“Taking into account this non-compliance, this Ministry marked the status of thesc MSOs as ‘Non-Compliant’. Furthermore…all broadcasters were advised (in March 2023) not to enter into interconnection agreements with non- compliant MSOs and to notify the non-compliant MSOs with whom they already have interconnection agreements,” MIB highlighted.
Show-cause notices, dated July 25, 2023, too were sent by MIB to the flagged MSOs seeking an explanation for non-compliance and asking them why their registrations should not be cancelled.
The MIB order and the full list of defaulting MSOs could be accessed here: https://mib.gov.in/sites/default/files/Order%20dated%2024%20August%202023.pdf
