The Indian government has said that there has been a decline in cable TV subscribers in India — which does not include the DTH consumer numbers — and that the proliferation of the over the top (OTT) platforms could be one of the reasons for the slowing down of numbers.

“Number of cable TV subscribers has shown decline over successive years from 103 million in March 2020 to 64 million in March 2023, excluding DTH and free Dish subscribers as mentioned in the Annual Reports of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India,” Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting L. Murugan said in Rajya Sabha on August 9.

The Minister, who was replying to a query from a fellow parliamentarian in the Upper House on the last working day of parliament’s Budget session last week, added, “The decline (in cable TV subscribers) may be partly attributable to the advent of Over-The-Top platforms.”

Asked whether the government had taken steps to bridge the “content flexibility disparity” between OTT and cable TV services, Murugan stated that while OTT platforms were regulated as per the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, cable TV was governed by the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Regulations.

“Government is guided by a differentiated approach for content regulation on OTT platforms and cable TV networks as the content in the former is consumed (on) on-demand basis whereas in the latter, it is in a linear manner,” Murugan added.