TRAI’s broadcasting mandate: Regulator of carriage or protector of intermediaries?

As television distribution shifts from cable, DTH and satellite networks to connected televisions and the open internet, the debate over the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s role in broadcasting is moving beyond technology. At its core is a more fundamental question: whether a regulatory framework created for a pre-liberalisation broadcasting ecosystem remains suited to a market where consumers increasingly access content directly.

TRAI entered the broadcasting sector as an ad hoc regulator, with its early mandate centred largely on regulating distribution platforms and relationships within the traditional broadcasting value chain. Over time, however, its interventions expanded from carriage and distribution into areas that have had a direct bearing on content economics, including tariffs, channel pricing and bundling.

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Industry executives argue that this expansion has blurred the distinction between regulating the infrastructure through which television reaches consumers and regulating the commercial choices made by broadcasters and viewers.

“TRAI’s mandate was fundamentally built around a distribution architecture. Over the years, that mandate has expanded into areas that influence what broadcasters can price, package and offer. In an internet-led market, that distinction needs to be revisited,” said a senior media industry executive.

The issue is becoming more pressing as FAST, connected TV (CTV) and application-based linear television gain traction. A channel that once required a satellite feed and a DTH or cable operator can increasingly be delivered through an application directly to a smart television.

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Under the traditional model, distributors occupy a critical position between broadcasters and consumers. The regulatory framework around interconnection, tariffs and quality of service consequently assumes identifiable distribution platforms and commercial relationships between broadcasters and distribution platform operators (DPOs).

Internet delivery can remove or substantially reduce that intermediary layer.

“The consumer is increasingly becoming the endpoint of the transaction rather than a participant in a B2B2C chain. In 2026, the market is fundamentally B2C. Regulation has to recognise that the consumer can access the same content without necessarily needing the traditional intermediary,” said a senior executive familiar with the broadcasting ecosystem.

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This raises questions about the philosophy underlying broadcasting regulation itself.

India’s economy was liberalised three decades ago, and broadcasting subsequently evolved from a predominantly state-controlled environment into a competitive private-sector market. 

Yet sections of the industry believe regulatory thinking continues to reflect an older economic model, in which protecting the smallest or most vulnerable participant in the value chain is prioritised even when the resulting intervention may not necessarily benefit consumers or encourage sectoral growth.

TRAI’s stated objectives include ensuring the “orderly growth” of the sector and protecting consumer interests. Industry stakeholders, however, increasingly question whether protecting intermediaries and ensuring orderly market structures are always synonymous with protecting consumers.

“Orderly growth cannot mean preserving every layer of an existing value chain indefinitely. If an intermediary becomes less relevant because technology allows consumers to access content directly, regulation should facilitate that transition rather than attempt to preserve the old structure,” said another industry source.

The criticism is particularly relevant to tariff regulation and bundling restrictions. While such rules can address market power and consumer concerns within a conventional distribution environment, their logic becomes harder to apply when a broadcaster can distribute a linear channel through its own application, determine its commercial proposition and interact directly with the viewer.

The April 2026 consultation on Application-based Linear Television Distribution (ALTD), including FAST services, reflects TRAI’s recognition of this changing landscape. But industry observers caution that extending the traditional regulatory architecture to internet-based television could risk reproducing the very intermediary structures that the technology is disrupting.

“The danger is that we create a regulatory framework for the internet by replicating the rules of cable and DTH. That would address a regulatory comfort zone rather than the market reality,” said a senior broadcasting professional.

For broadcasters, the concern is not simply regulatory compliance. It is whether restrictions designed around DPOs could constrain their ability to experiment with direct-to-consumer models at a time when television advertising and viewing are fragmenting across platforms.

For consumers, the implications could be equally significant. Greater direct access to channels could mean more choice, flexible pricing and alternative ways to consume television. Conversely, excessive regulation could limit these options if internet distribution is treated as an extension of the legacy broadcasting system rather than a fundamentally different market.

The emerging challenge for TRAI, therefore, may not be how to regulate every new form of television distribution, but where its regulatory boundary should end.

As traditional broadcasting declines and IP-based television expands, TRAI could increasingly find itself regulating a shrinking part of the television ecosystem while its interventions continue to shape the commercial choices of broadcasters.

“The sector does not need a regulator that simply protects the existing architecture. It needs a facilitator that allows the market to evolve while intervening where there is demonstrable consumer harm or market failure,” the executive said.

The larger question is whether TRAI can transition from being primarily a protector of intermediaries and orderly market structures to becoming a facilitator of competition, innovation and consumer choice.

For an industry moving rapidly towards direct, digital and application-led distribution, that distinction could determine not only TRAI’s future relevance but also the trajectory of Indian television itself.