The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) on August 01, 2023, issued an advisory on MSOs who are Non-Compliant but have interconnection Agreements with Broadcasters.
The Multi-System Operators were marked "Non-Compliant" as they had failed to comply with regulation 15(1) of the Interconnection Regulation, 2017 issued by TRAI which mandates that every distributor of television channels, once in a calendar year, shall cause the audit of its SMS, CAS and other related systems by an auditor to verify, that the monthly report made available by the distributor to the broadcasters are complete, true and correct.
The Ministry has directed all the MSOs to furnish information like number of subscribers, etc. However, when the MSO failed to provide the details sought by MIB, their status was marked as "Non-compliant".
Moreover, broadcasters were also advised to enter into fresh interconnection agreements only with "Compliant" MSOs and notify the MSOs under them who have been marked as "Non-Compliant" by this Ministry. Pursuant to this, broadcasters have issued communications to all "Non-Compliant" MSOs, having an interconnection agreement with them. However, it has been observed that despite being in operations and having executed interconnection agreements with broadcasters, MSOs listed in Schedule to this Advisory continue to remain in violation of the terms and conditions of their registration.
In view of the above, the "Non-Compliant" MSOs are hereby advised to furnish the requisite documents and get their status changed to "Compliant" latest by August 15, 2023, failing which, necessary action as deemed appropriate shall be initiated against them, including cancellation of registration as MSO.
The List of all Non-Compliant MSOs is attached to the document below.
[Notification No. N-4501 1/25/2022-DAS]
