TRAI drops sports signal-sharing mandate for internet TV, cites alternatives such as WAVES

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has recommended that apps and websites that stream live television channels should not be required to share sports broadcasting signals with Prasar Bharati. The regulator has also advised against extending compulsory carriage of certain channels to such platforms. 

Both obligations apply today to DTH, HITS and IPTV services. The recommendations, issued on October 26, form part of a proposed authorisation framework for what TRAI calls Application-based Linear Television Distribution (ALTD) Services, a category that includes free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) platforms.

TRAI’s reasoning on sports is that the statutory duty to share live sports signals with the public broadcaster sits with broadcasters and is not an obligation on television distribution platforms as such. 

The proposed framework, it said, rests on a light-touch approach in which only obligations that are necessary and commensurate with the nature of the service are applied. On that basis, the sports sharing requirement is marked “not applicable” to ALTD Service in the draft terms and conditions annexed to the recommendations.

The question was put to stakeholders in the consultation, and the responses were divided. Some argued that the requirement should extend to ALTD apps so that major sporting events of national importance remain universally accessible and do not end up exclusively on proprietary apps. 

One stakeholder suggested widening the definition of distribution to cover internet-delivered linear streams, in order to serve the public interest objective of the law. Others opposed the idea, saying live sports content is generally not available on ALTD apps and that mandatory sharing is therefore unnecessary. A further set of stakeholders said the obligation should not apply to services that are internet-based and on-demand in nature.

TRAI took a similar line on compulsory carriage of certain channels. The rationale for mandatory carriage on DTH, HITS, IPTV and cable, it said, is that consumers generally depend on a dedicated platform and the channels that platform chooses to offer. 

Viewers of ALTD services are in a different position. They are not tied to a specific platform or to proprietary customer premises equipment such as a set-top box, and are free to watch channels through many apps available on the internet. Among these, TRAI named broadcasters’ own applications, citing WAVES, the app of the public broadcaster Prasar Bharati. The authority therefore saw no need to prescribe compulsory carriage, leaving the carriage of such channels to the commercial discretion of the authorised app provider.

The consultation had drawn strong views on that point as well. Some stakeholders wanted Doordarshan channels, channels notified by the government in public interest and emergency broadcast signals carried on ALTD apps, with one saying this would make consumer choice easier. 

Others objected to app providers bearing cloud hosting and content delivery costs for carrying public broadcaster channels, and one stakeholder said mandatory carriage of Prasar Bharati channels had outlived its purpose.

The exemptions sit within a wider set of traditional-platform rules that TRAI has chosen not to import. It also dropped set-top box interoperability, which it said matters only where customer premises equipment is integral to service delivery, and the preference for Indian satellites, which is relevant only to services using satellite capacity. 

Reservation of operational channel capacity for vertically integrated entities was set aside too, because apps operating over the public internet face no channel capacity limits.

The relief comes alongside new obligations for app providers. They would need an authorisation from the Central Government as a sub-category of Television Channel Distribution Services under the Telecommunications Act, 2023. They could carry only channels that hold MIB permission or authorisation, or that are registered as internet-native linear channels. 

Broadcasters would have to supply their signals only to authorised apps, with a one-year transition after the framework is notified. The authorisation would be valid for 20 years and carry a one-time entry fee of ₹1 lakh, with no recurring authorisation fee.

The recommendations also leave open the harder commercial questions. TRAI said tariff rules for hybrid or pay offerings, interconnection and must-carry or must-provide principles, and quality-of-service norms will be examined separately once the government finalises the authorisation framework. The recommendations are not binding, and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting will decide whether and how to notify the rules.