Could a face-off between DTH company Tata Play and content and tech company Sony Pictures Networks India (SPNI) lead to harming India’s pay TV ecosystem, which is struggling with subscriber churn owing to the availability of newer techs like streaming? 

 Indian M&E industry observers would think so. They have pointed out that a fight between two important stakeholders doesn’t benefit anybody — certainly not the end-consumer.

 Though an exact number of pay TV subscribers in India is difficult to pinpoint, the figure could be anywhere between 110 million to 160 million. A TRAI report of 2024 also indicated that the total number of total active subscribers with pay DTH operators as of September 2024 stood 59.91 million, indicating a decline in numbers due to consumers leaving for Doordarshan’s FreeDish and OTT platforms.

 So, in a scenario like this Tata Play dropping the Sony channels from its list of pack offerings — a process that was reported last week — can push the already-troubled cable TV segment into more turmoil as such corporate stand-offs generally don’t benefit the consumers, though the DTH service provider is trying to have people believe the same.

 In response to consumer complaints on social media, Tata Play is reported to have replied that such pulling out of TV channels is part of its continued effort to improve customer experience. “In order to provide better value for our customers, we continually discontinue old packs and introduce new ones,” the DTH company explained.

 But such an explanation is not cutting much ice with consumers as one consumer pointed out that dropping of services mid-way a subscription plan-year felt like exploitation. Another frustrated customer posted: “Why did you unnecessarily optimised my pack without my knowledge? I neither asked for optimisation not did anyone taken my permission to do so. All of sudden since yesterday all @SonyTV channels are unsubscribed. Same goes with  @MTV also.”

According to media reports, especially in The Economic Times last week, Tata Play removed SPNI channels from its subscriber packs, leading to a dispute with the broadcaster. Social media is flooded with the consumers concerns and Tataplay is justifying this chaos as a routine pack optimisation. How is this justified? 

One cannot call it optimisation if it only involves either the inclusion or exclusion of channels from one broadcaster, without considering the overall viewer experience.

Though Indianbroadcastingworld.com could not elicit a response from Tata Play yesterday evening on the ongoing face-off with Sony despite calls and text messages, industry experts pointed out that the rate of Sony channels, however, remain unchanged on regulator TRAI’s website or any other platform.

 The industry observers also stated that SPNI has been a long supporter of the pay TV and linear broadcasting eco-system. So much so that big shows like ‘Srimad Ramayan’ was exclusively released on Linear Tv on Sony Entertainment Channel for almost a month before it was released on their OTT platform Sony Liv . Similarly movies like ‘Saale Ashiq’ and ‘Adbhut’ was released Directly on TV. In this connection, Sony shows  like ‘Tarak Mehta’, ‘CID’, ‘Crime Patrol’, ‘SaiBaba’ comes to mind which continues to enjoy cult fan following. Not to mention  the ongoing French Open tennis tournament.