Direct-to-home (DTH) service providers Tata Play, Airtel Digital TV, Sun Direct and Dish TV have come under scrutiny of Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, as per the Economic Times. The report mentions that the Centre has asked for a special audit of these service providers on the ages-old dispute over licence fees.
According to the Economic Times report, the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) wrote to the CAG of India asking for an intensive audit of all these DTH service providers going back to their year of inception or when the licence was granted by the government. It adds that the move has been initiated as some discrepancies have been suspected over revenue calculation by these companies.
The I&B ministry has asked CAG to conduct this special audit to ensure that the amount submitted to the central government by way of licence fee is correctly assessed and collected, as per the report. This development comes after the DTH service providers asked for a waiver of licence fee in May, citing a decline in subscribers over the years. The report has confirmed that the audit will cover Big TV/Independent TV as well as Videocon’s D2H TV.
These DTH service providers have to pay a part of their revenue as licence fees to the Centre, fees for which a waiver was sought, as mentioned before. This amount is set at 8 per cent of the annual gross revenue as recorded in the audited accounts of the company, the report adds.
The revenues from the DTH licence fee, commercial TV services, FM radio etc., are reportedly expected to cross Rs 1,000 crore in FY23, as per the report.
