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Monoranjan Pal of New Garia in the Southern suburb of Kolkata is unable to watch English movies on TV. His eight-year-old grandson Sourik too is irate at the fact that cartoon channels have been “blacked out” for the last five days.
The Pals are one among some 25 per cent of households in Kolkata who believed in the State Government’s opposition to the cable TV digitisation deadline and delayed buying a set top box. Now though, they are left with little choice.
At least five (out of 11) major multi-system operators (MSOs) — SitiCable, GTPL, Manthan, Digicable and Den — controlling nearly 90 per cent of the market, have started phasing out analogue signals following a final call from the Union Information and Broadcasting ministry (on December 13) to switch over to digital mode by Dec 27, or face punitive action.
Three MSOs — Siti Cable, Den and GTPL — confirmed switching off analogue in a phased manner over the last five days.
“We followed the I&B Ministry directive. Some channels have already been taken off air,” M. G. Azhar, COO, Den Networks told Business Line .
Blackout
Channels that have gone off air include include English movies, news (both English and Hindi), music (Hindi and English) and childrens’ fare (such as Cartoon Network, Pogo, Hungama among others) from December 16. According to a GTPL executive, nearly 70 per cent of the channels have gone off air. GTPL is the second largest operator in the city. Regional and Hindi general entertainment ones continue to be aired.
As per initial directives of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, chidlren’s as well as news channels should be the first off air (from December 17), followed by English movies and entertainment (December 23 onwards), Hindi movies and entertainment from December 25, and all other channels from December 27.
In Kolkata, the State Government has been insisting that both analogue and digital signals be beamed together until all households install set-top boxes. This has delayed completion of the mandatory digitisation programme here.
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