Mumbai: The ministry of information and broadcasting (MIB) on Friday issued operational guidelines for obtaining a licence for providing direct-to-home (DTH) broadcasting services in India. The ministry stated that these guidelines have been issued in accordance with the modified DTH guidelines released on 30 December, 2020.

As per the notice, these guidelines provide the operational framework with respect to the payment of licence fees, platform services (PS) channels, and sharing of infrastructure by DTH operators.

The policies outline the timetable for the quarterly payment of the licence fee by DTH operators.

Regarding platform service (PS) channels, the guidelines provide the definition of "platform services" and establish the norms for the DTH operators in running these services, which inter alia include that:

    The total number of PS channels permitted per operator is limited to five per cent of the total channel carriage capacity.

    All PS must carry a caption as "platform services" to distinguish them from the linear channels.

    The content of the PS is to be exclusive to the platform and is not to be shared directly or indirectly with any other distribution platform operator.

    All PS channels are to be placed together under the genre "platform services" in the Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) along with their maximum retail price and option for activation/deactivation of PS as per the applicable orders/directions/regulations of Trai.

The operational rules for the DTH operator's infrastructure sharing set forth the framework within which the sharing may be regulated, the processes for accountability and compliance, and the specific obligations of the parties to the sharing.

These operational instructions are in force as of the order's issuance date, which is 16 September, 2022.