KOLKATA: The deferred migration to a la carte is set to bring relief to a large section of cable TV homes, who had their pay channels blanked out for not choosing the channels they want to watch.Around 10 lakh of Kolkata’s 32-lakh cable subscribers — who missed the February 7 deadline and lost their pay channels — will now be offered a ‘best fit plan’ as mandated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) till March 31, which is the new cut-off date for migration.The plan will be framed on the basis of the subscribers’ viewing pattern, language spoken and popularity of channels. While this promises to bring the major entertainment and sports channels back on screen, multi-system operators (MSO) warn that the respite could be short-lived since they will start switching the pay channels off again within a month.According to cable industry sources, around 5 lakh of Kolkata’s cable homes have been migrated to the new regime. Around 7 lakh are yet to choose channels but have not had any channels withdrawn. The rest are now watching only the free-to-air channels (FTA) channels. Some have a sprinkling of pay channels thrown in.“This section now gets a reprieve since they will have some of the popular channels back. But it is not going to last long. Even if MSOs stick to the TRAI mandate and offer a ‘best fit plan’, the switching off has to resume by mid-March if they have to meet the deadline,” said an MSO official.Those who have not lost channels despite refusing to migrate so far, stand to gain. They will continue to receive their existing packages and pay the same subscription fee. One of the city MSOs with a substantial subscriber base has not been able to initiate the migration process. They have not blanked out channels either. “This has pushed up the number of those who are yet to lose channels despite not taking part in the migration process. Once the MSO launches its migration, this number will slide,” said Mrinal Chatterjee of MSO Bengal Broadband.MSOs and operators (LCO), however, were not sure about the TRAI-recommended best-fit plan. “It’s not clear yet and we are waiting for MSOs to decide. This is a backward step since the non-respondents would have been forced to act without the channels. Once some of the channels return, there will again be a reluctance to choose channels,” said south Kolkata cable operator Bapi Banerjee.He added that the TRAI order was also discriminatory. “While there are lakhs of users who have not responded but are still enjoying all channels, there are others who have had all pay channels disconnected. While those who have migrated are now in a higher subscription bracket, the reprieve allows many to enjoy more pay channels at a lower rate, albeit till March 31,” said Banerjee.Since the latest TRAI order directs MSOs to ‘continue to provide various user-friendly methods to subscribers to exercise their choice’, the non-respondents will soon have all their pay channels blanked out, felt Chatterjee.

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