Mondira Banerjee is a diehard fan of tennis star Maria Sharapova and makes it a point to never miss any of her matches. But to her dismay she missed the French Open
Customers are irked by the DTH service provider’s decision to reduce the number of channels
Mondira Banerjee is a diehard fan of tennis star Maria Sharapova and makes it a point to never miss any of her matches. But to her dismay she missed the French Open championship because she couldn’t find her favourite sports channel.
Like Banerjee, several other customers of Tata Sky are facing a similar problem. A few months ago, Tata Sky, a leading direct-to-home (DTH) service provider, surprised its customers by cutting down on its monthly rental. However, since June 1, the company also reduced the number of channels included in their package.
“This scheme is ridiculous because people who paid for the whole year are now not able to view some of their favourite channels. I wasted a whole day trying to get in touch with officials at Tata Sky and also missed watching the French Open on my only day off,” said Banerjee.
“The company says that this new scheme is for the customers benefit. How will I benefit it if they remove the channels I want to watch and then make me pay more for them?”
Similarly, a noted lawyer from Malabar Hill complained that his calls to Tata Sky helpline went unanswered. “BBC is my favourite news channel but I can’t view it anymore. A message flashes on my TV screen that I should call the helpline for more information. But when I call them, there is no response. These people can’t take their customers for granted,” he said
Ganesh Naidu, president of cable operators’ distributors association, claimed that cable service is still the best. “We provide set-top box for Rs1,000 in which you can view almost 1,000 channels. You have to pay only Rs250 per month. But big service providers like Tata Sky charge a lot of money and don’t show more than 200 channels at a time.”
When contacted, an official from Tata Sky said that they try to carry the most popular channels available. “Although there is unlimited availability of content from various sources, the transponder capacity is limited. Projected increase in cost to the consumers prevents us from carrying all the available content.
Certain channels such as BBC entertainment, BBC World, ESPN and Star Sports have been dropped because they are part of new add-on packs. We have carried a scroll on concerned channels informing consumers about the move and have sent broadcast mails to all homes.”
t_kiran@dnaindia.net 
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