There was a huge uproar on Twitter as the hashtag #BiggestMediaScam began to trend on social media following a TV blackout that began on Saturday February 18. It still is trending on Twitter as the blackout has affected over a third of cable and satellite homes in India. This blackout affected popular channels from the Star, Sony, and Zee networks. Cable operators’ channel price disagreements were the cause of the TV blackout. The problem highlights the flaws in the television broadcasting industry.
Due to the New Tariff Order 3.0’s (NTO 3.0) implementation, three of India’s top media companies—Star, Sony, and Zee went off cable platforms. The disruption has affected many viewers in India and is now unable to access major TV channels, with simply a black screen on their televisions. The NTO 3.0 went into effect on February 1 of this year, and as a result, broadcasters had to raise their prices by 10 per cent to 25 per cent. The new pricing structure has however resulted in disagreements between media firms and local cable operators, with many channels being taken off the air as a result of pricing issues.
The cable operators claim that the new restrictions have increased their expenses and that they are afraid of passing those costs on to Indian consumers because they are price sensitive since the media companies claim that the new pricing is necessary to maintain their revenue.
“This decision is definitely worst to be honest man. They are going against it’s consumers. What a horrible news of the day..” wrote a user.
Another person said, “The investment done by every owners for advertisement is being wasted…as there is being a big scam…the boardcaster are the biggest fraud of all time…investors should be concerned about it.”
“This decision is definitely the worst, to be an honest man. They are going against their consumers. What horrible news of the day. #IndianEconomy,” tweeted The Facts App.
A user wrote that millions of viewers are upset because of the broadcasters. “They are not able to watch their favorite channels and elders and broadcasters are also looting the advertisement money, it has to be careful,” he added.
