BENGALURU: Television screens may go blank between 6am and 10pm on January 24 with local cable operators (LCOs) threatening a strike to protest the tariff regime to be rolled out on February 1.Cable operators are not happy with the revenue-sharing formula prescribed by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Trai ) and they will switch off cable feeds across south India.“Our demand is: Rework revenue sharing before launching the new regime so that LCOs are saved from becoming unviable,” said VS Patrick Raju, president, Karnataka Cable TV Operators’ Association, after a meeting here on Wednesday. They are also seeking GST on maximum retail price of pay channels to be cut from 18% to 5%.The Centre’s new tariff plan allows consumers to choose channels and pay only for them. Consumers can select 100 channels, 26 of which are mandatory Doordarshan channels, by paying a minimum of Rs 130 (network capacity fee), plus 18%. They can get 25 more channels under this category by paying an additional fee of Rs 20. These 99 channels could be a combination of both free-to-air (FTA) and pay channels.For every channel — a la carte (individual) or bouquet (multiple) — beyond the network capacity, viewers will have to pay as per the MRP already fixed by broadcasters and this ranges between 10 paise and Rs 19.“Cable operators fear less revenue in the new regime. But revenue will depend on the agreement between them and multi-system operators,” said Debkumar Chakraborty, principal adviser (broadcast and cable services), Trai.According to the Trai formula, 80% of MRP of a pay channel goes to broadcasters and the rest is shared between MSOs and LCOs. Network fee is shared 55:45 by MSOs and LCOs. Raju said: “We feel LCOs should get 60% of MRP in case of pay channels and entire network capacity fee should go to them.” “We get about 400 channels for Rs 300. It’ll cost more because of the price band fixed by Trai,” said Leela Krishna, a homemaker in Vijayanagar.

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