The Hindu Business Line : Despite the glitches — Chennai may lead the way in CAS

THE television viewer is clueless; worse, the cable operators don't seem to be any wiser; the broadcasters, particularly the `pay' ones, are waiting for the elusive Government notification, postponing the conditional access system (CAS) once again. Amid all these, the multi-system operators (MSOs) alone seem confident.

There must be good reason why they think CAS will be a success, and why there will be healthy demand for the set-top boxes. One possible reason lies in the quality of free-to-air (FTA) channels that would be available, without the viewer having to buy a set-top box, once CAS sets in. For, a television viewer must truly be multilingual to be able to make sense of most of the FTAs!

A sample of what's to come post-CAS can be seen in a notification sent by a Chennai-based cable operator to his viewers, listing out the FTAs and pay channels. Nearly half of the 40 FTAs in that list are non-Tamil, non-English and non-Hindi channels! These are channels such as Udaya, Ushe, ETV-Marathi, Surya, Asianet, Kairali, Maa TV, ETC Punjabi and the like. In addition, one who only wants FTAs would get access to a horde of DD channels in different regional languages. The cost of the FTAs will work out to Rs 72 plus local taxes.

The saving grace in that list seems to be the Tamil channels led by Sun TV, which enjoy high viewership in the city. While Sun and Jaya are already FTA, Raj Network had announced that it would be FTA only in the metro while retaining its `pay' status for its flagship Raj TV and Raj Digital Plus elsewhere in the State.

Star Vijay, which according to news reports costs Rs 10 on an a la carte basis, would remain pay, said a spokesman of the channel.

With opposition to CAS mounting in Mumbai and Kolkata, Chennai seems to be the most likely metro to adopt it from September 1 but the local cable operators here said that TV viewers had not been properly informed about the regime.

As a consequence, there have not been many enquiries from consumers about set-top boxes. However, they indicated that demand would swell once CAS sets in and the consumers were forced to put up with only the FTAs, similar to those in the list!

The cost of the set-top boxes, in the case of upfront payment, could range between Rs 3,500 and Rs 4,500, though Hathaway was offering some rental schemes also, said the cable operators.

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