The Ministry of Info and Broadcasting has issued licence price demand notices totalling Rs 16,000 crore to India’s 4 personal Direct-to-Residence (DTH) operators, escalating monetary pressures on a sector already dealing with declining revenues and stiff competitors from OTT platforms and DD Free Dish, The Financial Instances Reported, citing Trade sources.
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Operators Push Again, Cite Ongoing Authorized Disputes
The calls for, which embody each principal licence charges and accrued curiosity, have been served to Dish TV, Tata Play, Bharti Telemedia (Airtel Digital TV), and Solar Direct. Trade sources indicated that the operators have expressed their incapability to conform, citing ongoing authorized proceedings in numerous Excessive Courts, the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT), and the Supreme Courtroom.
Dish TV, in its This fall FY25 regulatory submitting, disclosed receiving a ministry communication dated April 22, 2025, directing fee of Rs 6,735 crore, together with curiosity, masking dues from the licence grant date via FY24. The corporate has formally disputed this demand and made provisions of Rs 4,612 crore towards it as of March 2025.
Tata Play has obtained a consolidated demand of Rs 3,628 crore, together with Rs 1,401.66 crore in curiosity. It has provisioned Rs 2,002 crore and recognised a further Rs 2,280 crore as contingent legal responsibility. Solar Direct has been requested to pay Rs 1,051.84 crore excluding curiosity, whereas Bharti Airtel had made provisions of about Rs 3,426 crore in the direction of comparable dues by March 2024.
The mixture demand surpasses the mixed income of those operators, which stood at Rs 10,230 crore in FY24 — a 5 % decline from the earlier yr.
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Trade Seeks Aid
A senior DTH government quoted within the report added that the ministry has raised comparable calls for up to now, even when authorized disputes stay unresolved.
“DTH operators have repeatedly urged the ministry to exclude pass-through prices, reminiscent of content material bills, from the licence price calculations and to handle the problem of double taxation. Nonetheless, these considerations are but to be addressed,” the manager mentioned, as talked about within the report.
Dish TV CEO Manoj Dobhal acknowledged the sector’s challenges, citing subscriber losses pushed by competitors from OTT platforms and DD Free Dish, in addition to taxation and regulatory hurdles. “The DTH business is navigating a troublesome part, with components reminiscent of subscriber churn pushed by competitors from OTT platforms and DD Free Dish, together with taxation and regulatory points,” Dobhal mentioned. “Given these challenges, we might have hoped for a extra supportive method from the authorities.”
In accordance with the report, the ministry acknowledged that the figures stay provisional and are topic to reconciliation primarily based on Comptroller and Auditor Common (CAG) audits and pending judicial outcomes.
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Licence Payment Reforms
The DTH sector misplaced 8 million subscribers between FY21 and FY24, with the energetic pay subscriber base standing at 58.22 million as of December 2024.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has twice really helpful phasing out the DTH licence price by FY27 and has issued 17 reform suggestions since 2020. In 2020, the ministry amended DTH tips, lowering the licence price from 10 % of gross income to eight % of adjusted gross income (AGR).
Bharti Telemedia, Tata Play, and Solar Direct declined to touch upon the most recent demand notices, based on the report.
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