The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said it would hold a public hearing next month on the government’s proposed implementation of a tiered scheme to charge cable service subscribers, adding that the cap for fees could be lifted should cable system operators offer a greater variety of channels in their packages.
Subscribers must pay a fixed monthly fee that allows them to access more than 100 channels. They cannot subscribe to only a portion of the channels.
The fee is capped at NT$600, although most operators set their prices below that limit.
The commission’s proposed plan for a tiered service stipulates that cable operators must offer a basic channel package that would include 13 “must-carry” channels, including terrestrial TV and local channels, as well as two channels that broadcast meetings at the Legislative Yuan.
The 13 channels would be free of charge, but subscribers to the basic package would pay up to NT$200 per month to cover the expense of installing and maintaining the service, according to the plan.
Other channels would be considered “pay channels,” the commission said, adding that operators can bundle such channels into different packages with varying prices.
To ensure that pay channel bundles include a variety of programming, at least one package must contain five different types of channels, such as news, drama, movies, education, and children and youth, it said.
All subscribers would have to pay for the cost of the must-carry channels, regardless of the number of pay channels they subscribe to, it added.
However, if subscribers are not interested in the pay channel packages offered to them, they can subscribe to individual pay channels, the commission said, adding that cable operators would not be allowed to reject such requests from subscribers.
Implementing a tiered scheme for cable TV services would allow subscribers to choose the channels they want to watch, the commission said, adding that it plans to lift the price cap if operators meet certain criteria.
“When we review the prices that cable operators set for each pay channel or pay channel package, we will look at the actual cost of offering these services,” Department of Planning Director Wang De-wei (王德威) said.
“We are more likely to give cable operators some flexibility in pricing if they have diverse groups of channels for people to choose from,” Wang said.
The commission said that it is not against cable operators offering some pay channel packages for free as a marketing strategy to promote their services.
However, it said that cable operators must not reject channel operators that want to bundle channels by themselves into different packages.
The agency is scheduled to hold a public hearing next month to allow all stakeholders to comment on the proposal, commission spokesperson Weng Po-tsung (翁柏宗) said, adding that the tiered scheme could be implemented in 2019.
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