For 36 hours starting on Tuesday, cable television watchers in parts of Lucknow and Ghaziabad found that they could not access Times Now and India News.
Rumours immediately began to spread that the Uttar Pradesh government had ordered cable operators to unplug the channels because it was offended by their reports about its extravagant Saifai Mahotsav, at which major Bollywood stars performed, even as thousands of victims of the Muzaffarnagar riots lacked proper assistance.
Though the UP government denied that it had imposed a ban, the blackout demonstrated yet again how susceptible the cable distribution system is to the whims of local operators. Even if the Samajwadi Party government had not sent out explicit directions, it’s quite likely that local operators in Lucknow and Ghaziabad switched off the channels on their own initiative.
Most of India’s 140 million cable subscribers are serviced by local operators, who in turn receive their TV signals from larger companies, such as Hathaway or IN Cable. But the local cable operators, who provide the last-mile connection to viewers' homes, have a disproportionate ability to influence viewers’ choices.
These local operators are an intrinsic part of neighbourhood social and political networks and often have close relations with the area’s politicians, said Thomas Abraham, a former editor at Indiantelevision.com, a website focused on the television business. “Cable operators themselves have political affiliations, based on which they decide what to air and what to block,” he said. Even if they are not arm-twisted by politicians, they could be under unspoken pressure to black out material that could be deemed undesirable, he said.
Cable operators also have another lever over their subscribers. They decide the position in which a particular television channel appears on television sets. “This leads to a vicious circle in which channels pay operators to promote them and operators keep demanding more money for this,” said Somnath Batabyal, a professor of media studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and author of ‘Making News in India: Star TV and Star Ananda’. “This means that cable operators actually control the market in their own areas.”
Relations between the media and the Samajwadi Party have been wearing thin for a while. On December 30, when a reporter from the NDTV news channel asked chief minister Akhilesh Yadav about the condition in the relief camps for refugees from the Muzaffarnagar riots, he refused to answer him.
If it turns out that cable operators in UP were actually under pressure, it will not be the first time that such a thing has happened.
In 2011, the Day and Night News channel filed a petition before the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal stating that it had run afoul of the Fastway Transmissions group of cable companies that accounts for 85 per cent of cable services in Punjab. It alleged that its signal flagged every time it beamed content that wasn't flattering to the Shiromani Akali Dal, which was in power in the state at the time.
After a while, it was explicitly told by Fastway not to broadcast any anti-government content, and it was finally blacked out from services entirely in 2011. This dented the channel's revenues and it was consequently forced to lay off 60 employees in August 2013, it said.
Another example of politicians influencing the fate of cable networks comes from Tamil Nadu. For almost two decades, one cable network, Sumangali Cable Vision, dominated the state. The network is run by Kalanithi Maran, a grandnephew of DMK head N Karunanidhi.
As long as Sumangali was the primary player, the opposition AIADMK leader Jayalalitha’s bouquet of channels, including Jaya TV, had low ratings. Once her party came to power and revived a government-regulated cable network, Arasu Cable, in 2011, Jaya TV’s ratings went up.
But help may be at hand for cable viewers. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India hopes that its plan to digitise the country’s cable-TV distribution network will increase accountability. Under this plan, which already in operation in Mumbai and Delhi, viewers will have to install set-top boxes through which they will receive digital signals from their cable operators. This will increase quality, but it will also increase accountability.
“What will change after digitisation is that after cable operators get consolidated, they will be obliged to be completely open with their transmissions,” said Vanita Kohli-Khandekar, a media specialist and author of 'The Indian Media Business'. “Larger companies are less likely to pay heed to a local politician demanding that certain content not be aired.”
In the short term, to break the hold of entrenched cable operators, the information and broadcast ministry has begun granting licences to new applicants. It cleared 70 licences on Monday.
Once digitisation is complete, politicians will not be able to unofficially block channels through cable operators, according to Abraham. “The cable operators cannot hide their transmission records,” he said.
Like any other viewer with a grouse, politicians will have to go through boards such as the Broadcasting Content Complaints Council or file orders under laws relating to libel or defamation.
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Rumours immediately began to spread that the Uttar Pradesh government had ordered cable operators to unplug the channels because it was offended by their reports about its extravagant Saifai Mahotsav, at which major Bollywood stars performed, even as thousands of victims of the Muzaffarnagar riots lacked proper assistance.
Though the UP government denied that it had imposed a ban, the blackout demonstrated yet again how susceptible the cable distribution system is to the whims of local operators. Even if the Samajwadi Party government had not sent out explicit directions, it’s quite likely that local operators in Lucknow and Ghaziabad switched off the channels on their own initiative.
Most of India’s 140 million cable subscribers are serviced by local operators, who in turn receive their TV signals from larger companies, such as Hathaway or IN Cable. But the local cable operators, who provide the last-mile connection to viewers' homes, have a disproportionate ability to influence viewers’ choices.
These local operators are an intrinsic part of neighbourhood social and political networks and often have close relations with the area’s politicians, said Thomas Abraham, a former editor at Indiantelevision.com, a website focused on the television business. “Cable operators themselves have political affiliations, based on which they decide what to air and what to block,” he said. Even if they are not arm-twisted by politicians, they could be under unspoken pressure to black out material that could be deemed undesirable, he said.
Cable operators also have another lever over their subscribers. They decide the position in which a particular television channel appears on television sets. “This leads to a vicious circle in which channels pay operators to promote them and operators keep demanding more money for this,” said Somnath Batabyal, a professor of media studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and author of ‘Making News in India: Star TV and Star Ananda’. “This means that cable operators actually control the market in their own areas.”
Relations between the media and the Samajwadi Party have been wearing thin for a while. On December 30, when a reporter from the NDTV news channel asked chief minister Akhilesh Yadav about the condition in the relief camps for refugees from the Muzaffarnagar riots, he refused to answer him.
If it turns out that cable operators in UP were actually under pressure, it will not be the first time that such a thing has happened.
In 2011, the Day and Night News channel filed a petition before the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal stating that it had run afoul of the Fastway Transmissions group of cable companies that accounts for 85 per cent of cable services in Punjab. It alleged that its signal flagged every time it beamed content that wasn't flattering to the Shiromani Akali Dal, which was in power in the state at the time.
After a while, it was explicitly told by Fastway not to broadcast any anti-government content, and it was finally blacked out from services entirely in 2011. This dented the channel's revenues and it was consequently forced to lay off 60 employees in August 2013, it said.
Another example of politicians influencing the fate of cable networks comes from Tamil Nadu. For almost two decades, one cable network, Sumangali Cable Vision, dominated the state. The network is run by Kalanithi Maran, a grandnephew of DMK head N Karunanidhi.
As long as Sumangali was the primary player, the opposition AIADMK leader Jayalalitha’s bouquet of channels, including Jaya TV, had low ratings. Once her party came to power and revived a government-regulated cable network, Arasu Cable, in 2011, Jaya TV’s ratings went up.
But help may be at hand for cable viewers. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India hopes that its plan to digitise the country’s cable-TV distribution network will increase accountability. Under this plan, which already in operation in Mumbai and Delhi, viewers will have to install set-top boxes through which they will receive digital signals from their cable operators. This will increase quality, but it will also increase accountability.
“What will change after digitisation is that after cable operators get consolidated, they will be obliged to be completely open with their transmissions,” said Vanita Kohli-Khandekar, a media specialist and author of 'The Indian Media Business'. “Larger companies are less likely to pay heed to a local politician demanding that certain content not be aired.”
In the short term, to break the hold of entrenched cable operators, the information and broadcast ministry has begun granting licences to new applicants. It cleared 70 licences on Monday.
Once digitisation is complete, politicians will not be able to unofficially block channels through cable operators, according to Abraham. “The cable operators cannot hide their transmission records,” he said.
Like any other viewer with a grouse, politicians will have to go through boards such as the Broadcasting Content Complaints Council or file orders under laws relating to libel or defamation.