New Delhi: After spurning a pre-Conditional Access System (CAS) "honeymoon" time proposal, broadcasters are likely to come up with an incentive scheme of offering all pay channels free for a month to cable TV subscribers opting for set-top boxes to view them.

While Zee's Subhash Chandra has already conveyed this new formula to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry on August 7, other broadcasters are expected to come up with similar offers and claim they may extend the offer beyond a month.

Though this would also amount to offering all channels for Rs 72, which is the rate of the basic tier of free-to-air channels, it would be only for those opting for set-top boxes.

The broadcasters, who had rejected the proposal of offering all channels for Rs 72 to all cable subscribers till their zone got notified for CAS, feel they should give some incentive to viewers who opt for set-top boxes that would be required to view pay channels in the new regime.

However, with broadcasters, multi-system operators and cable operators still wrangling over CAS-related issues and having had to go back on earlier promises, government is adopting a wait-and-watch approach, Ministry sources said.

The government also hopes the broadcasters will come out with new rates for pay channels before August 14, when the next meeting of the Implementation Committee is scheduled to be held, they said.

Meanwhile, another government notification is likely soon making it mandatory for cable operators and MSOs to intimate the subscribers about details of STBS.

PTI