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Rasheeda Bhagat

Nothing yet on the MSOs' dish. — Anu Pushkarna

THE variety and manoeuvrability of the English language never ceases to amaze. So, when it comes to any contentious issue, such as the controversy surrounding the conditional access system (CAS) in millions of homes in India, one can use a plethora of terms to describe the scene in Chennai.

While referring to Chennai being the sole survivor in the four metros in implementing CAS, while some media headlines read "Chennai toes the line" or "Chennai falls in line", a well-known consumer activist in the city, Mr Nirmal of Exnora, wondered why this metro was being used as a "guinea pig", when the other three were let off the hook, at least for the time being. Of course, the English language provides plenty of scope for using much harsher language to say the same thing, but why attack a group of people, of which you yourself are a part, would be a pertinent question to ask.

The meek, says the Bible, will inherit the earth. But before that can happen, the meek also get trampled upon, and this has happened to the people of Chennai quite often.

First, let us look at the CAS scene. Basically, the Government decided one fine day that cable television in India was growing leaps and bounds and that the Government itself was missing out on a slice of the cake.

So, we were told by the official spokesperson that the cable television industry was too chaotic and needed to be regulated. And that, we learnt, could be done by getting set-top boxes attached to our TV sets. Only the naïve would have thought this would be in the consumer's interest and that it would save the already burdened housewife some money at the end of the month.

Of course, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry mandarins kept shouting from the rooftops that, at the end of the day, the CAS would benefit the consumer because if one wanted to watch only a few channels, one could do so at a monthly expenditure that could be even half the average price of the Rs 200-250 that cable TV subscribers have been shelling out at the end of the month till then.

But the bouquets of channels are priced so ingeniously that at the end of the day, with the interests of a typical family — husband, wife and two children — being so varied, the hapless consumer would end up paying the same as he does now. What do you do if the husband wants to watch a sports channel, the wife a Tamil/Hindi soap, the younger child Cartoon network and the older one a film on Star Movies/HBO?

At the end of the day, the bonus — of course, for the industry and those in the kickback chain — would be the Rs 4,500 or so that the poor sucker (the consumer, who else) would have to shell out to pay for the set-top box.

Now let us come to the "meek" populace of Chennai, left holding the CAS baby. At first, the Ministry decided that Delhi, which goes to the polls to decide the fate of the next Government this November, would be left out of the CAS loop. This news had the Mumbai strongman, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, seeing red. If Delhi was left off the hook, Mumbai too could wait before getting the CAS treatment, he insisted.

The West Bengal Government made its displeasure known too, but more tactfully. It sent a list of "doubts and clarifications" to the Centre and decided that CAS could wait till it got a satisfactory reply.

That left only the Tamil Nadu Government and its people to protest. Anyway, the State cannot boast of a Thackeray; all it can lay claim to is the sandalwood smuggler Veerappan. On the move all the time and preoccupied with his timber and ivory business, the brigand perhaps has little time to watch television, cable or otherwise. So, on Sunday, Chennai viewers got the ultimatum from the pay channels — cough up for the set top boxes, or else...

Two days have gone by and the response to the scheme has been poor. The people of Chennai have till now taken every adversity in their stride, without a whimper of a protest, whether it punctures holes in their vehicle tyres or pinches their pockets — be it potholed roads or exorbitantly priced water tankers. (One would be loathe to classify in this bracket the State Government's recent diktat on rain water harvestingbecause, though sudden, this measure has to be taken not only in our interest but that of future generations.)

So, it would be endowing upon ourselves undeserved heroism to assume that, at long last, some kind of consumer resistance is emerging and we have collectively decided not to "toe the line" or offer ourselves as "guinea pigs" in the CAS cause.

Various estimates put the cable TV subscribing households in this metro to be between 9 and 11 lakh, and in the first 36 hours after the pay channels were cut off, not even 10 per cent of households had opted for a set-top box. While one parent was quite happy to have a breather from Star Movies/HBO and Cartoon Network as far as his teenaged and younger son were concerned, another said he simply could not spare the Rs 4,500 demanded by his cable operator for the set-top box.

Another problem that has been bothering the cable TV subscribers of Chennai has been the lack of choice in selecting one's cable operator. The two players in this market are Sumangali Cable Vision (SCV) and Hathway Cable TV Distributors, and the city has been witness in the past to all kinds of feuds between the two when their paths cross in certain areas.

But, then, there are very few areas in Chennai where a subscriber can choose between the two, as large pockets are the domain of either one or the other.

For instance, in one area every one is agreed that the local cable operator provides deficient service. The reception on many a channel has been hazy but the several complaints have, apparently, only got an indifferent response from him. Yet, business is lucrative as the humble TVS-50 he used to be seen on in the neighbourhood till a couple of years ago has been replaced by a Hyundai Accent.

When one asked a colleague, who is well informed on the intricacies of business law, whether an area having only a single cable provider does not attract the provisions of the MRTP (Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices) Act, he said, "Not necessarily." But the consumers are at his mercy, you say helplessly, to get the response that they could always go to the consumer court for deficiency in service.

While that is indeed an option, one cannot help asking when you can choose from a plethora of telecom or Internet service providers, why should one be at the mercy of a single rude and inefficient cable service provider.

Looking at the larger CAS picture, for the moment there is utter confusion in Chennai as neither the local cable operator nor his bosses have any degree of clarity on the cost of the various bouquets or the schemes under which a set-top box can be accessed — outright purchase, payment in instalments or a rental scheme.

Many a cable operator, by the way, does not believe in offering such low-market schemes as the option to rent a set-top box.

It is indeed impressive that till now the Chennaite has resisted the temptation to rush to his cable TV provider with orders for the set-top box to set his cash registers ringing. But soon the cricket series will be on, and his/her resistance levels will be put to the test, not to mention the little one clamouring for Cartoon Network.

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