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Tata Play, the Direct-to-Dwelling (DTH) enterprise of Tata Group, has written to the telecom regulator, looking for a licence charge for streaming service suppliers such Netflix and Amazon Prime.
Tata Play has mentioned that whereas DTH gamers have to provide 8 per cent of their annual revenues as licence charge, digital streaming operators, or OTT gamers, would not have to pay any such charge.
“DTH platforms, which distribute each pay and free-to-air (FTA) channels, simply as MSOs of cable and HITS platforms, pay licence charge on the price of 8 per cent of adjusted gross income (AGR), whereas the MSOs don’t, regardless of being safety cleared by MHA and licensed by the MIB. OTT platforms additionally carry most pay and FTA channels, along with authentic content material, go direct to residence, but they’re neither required to be licensed, nor pay any licence charge. Furthermore, TRAI laws are additionally not relevant to them. There may be thus a big disparity between the remedy meted out to the DTH operators towards different operators, regardless of providing the identical service,” mentioned Tata Play in its submission to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
Tata Play has requested to take away the discriminatory licence charge remedy being meted out to the DTH trade, and supply a level-playing discipline by decreasing the charge from 8 per cent to 4 per cent for DTH gamers, and impose a 4 per cent revenue-share on different gamers, together with OTT service suppliers.
“A 4 per cent licence charge could also be imposed on all content material distributors, cable, DTH or OTT, to carry a couple of level-playing discipline whereas not being too harsh a levy on cable. It could even be income impartial for the exchequer,” mentioned Tata Play.
The Tata Group entity has additionally requested the regulator to exclude all revenues earned from non-licensed actions from the calculation of licence charge, as has been performed by the Division of Telecom for the telecom operators. The DoT had not too long ago introduced that solely income from telecom companies could be thought-about to calculate annual income share ending a 15 yr lengthy dispute with telecom operators.
Printed on
June 12, 2022
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