Exclusive: MSOs to fight I&B ministry's landing-page move; fear 15% revenue hit

New Delhi: The cable television industry is preparing to strongly oppose the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting’s (MIB) proposed amendments to the Television Rating Points (TRP) guidelines, which seek to delink landing pages from official audience measurement.

Cable operators estimate that the move could severely impact their financial health, wiping out nearly 15 per cent of their annual revenue.

Also read: Exclusive: Here's how MIB plans to exclude landing pages from final TRPs

Landing pages have long been a contentious but lucrative part of India’s broadcasting ecosystem. For multi-system operators (MSOs), these placements are a significant source of non-subscription income, often used by broadcasters to boost viewership numbers and enhance brand visibility.

Landing page financial impact

For the financial year 2023–24, industry reports indicate that the combined revenue of the top ten MSOs and four DTH operators was Rs 21,500 crore.

Based on historical market-share trends, MSOs accounted for about 54–56 per cent of the total distribution market.

This puts the total revenue for multi-system operators (MSOs) in the Indian cable TV sector (excluding DTH) at an estimated Rs 11,500–12,000 crore.

While DTH operators stay away from landing pages, broadcasters’ entire landing-page spend flows to MSOs.

Also read: Who killed landing pages?

The internal data intelligence lab at BestMediaInfo.com suggests that broadcasters collectively spend about Rs 2,000 crore on landing pages.

This figure underscores the financial weight landing pages carry within the distribution ecosystem. For many cable operators, landing-page deals serve as a cushion against rising infrastructure and content distribution costs.

However, DTH operators have long maintained that landing pages provide an unfair advantage to MSOs, while they strictly follow TRAI norms.

“On multiple representations to the I&B Ministry, we sought to create a level playing field between DTH and cable platforms. This kind of cushion would have given the DTH operators a huge fillip to cut losses and expand offerings,” said a former DTH executive, adding that the ministry acknowledged this policy gap.

Carriage, placement and landing pages

From an early push to curb paid prominence on electronic programme guides to the latest move to strip landing-page exposures from TRP counts, TRAI’s rules around distribution have shifted repeatedly over the past decade.

2012: As cable digitisation rolled out, TRAI’s first amendment (May 14, 2012) introduced stricter EPG discipline and questioned the basis for “placement fee” in a genre-wise guide.

October 19, 2012: TDSAT partly allowed industry appeals and set aside three provisions of TRAI’s 2012 interconnection rules, including the prohibition on MSOs charging placement fee. This kept placement-style commercial arrangements alive.

2017: TRAI notified the Interconnection Regulations, 2017 for addressable systems, formalising carriage-fee caps on a per-subscriber basis—20 paise for SD and 40 paise for HD.

January 1, 2020: An amendment imposed absolute monthly ceilings—Rs 4 lakh per SD channel per DPO and Rs 8 lakh per HD channel per DPO.

Landing pages under scrutiny (2018): During TRAI’s 2018 consultation on “placing of TV channels on landing page,” BARC told the regulator it cannot identify landing-page exposures in its panel data; industry bodies described landing as the LCN that auto-opens when the set-top box is switched on.

Both placement and landing coexisted and served different levers: placement for sustained LCN visibility, landing for power-on reach.

Strong opposition from MSOs

Speaking with BestMediaInfo.com, an owner of a medium-sized MSO repeated the logic that underpinned the legal challenge to TRAI’s recommendations on landing pages.

“Our view is very clear. This entire exercise was not required. The basic premise is simple: a subscriber will always land on a channel. Whether you measure it or not is secondary. Landing channels are not a new phenomenon. They’ve existed since 2013,” he said.

Also read: Landing pages curb: Advertisers see cleaner planning, stronger ad-rate leverage

He added that apprehensions about landing pages distorting TRPs are misplaced. He pointed out that BARC already has an algorithm to neutralise the initial few seconds of suspected “push-watching” by distributors. Internationally as well, he said, whether in the UK, Singapore or the USA, landing-page viewership is counted as part of TRPs and is not excluded anywhere.

Drawing a parallel with other marketing formats, the executive questioned the logic of penalising broadcasters for investing in landing-page visibility. “So what are we saying? If Apple can afford a jacket ad in a newspaper but Vivo or Lava cannot, should Apple be penalised? It doesn’t work like that. Walk into Reliance Mart. The products placed at the entrance pay a premium for that placement. That’s just marketing.”

Countering such marketing arguments, TRAI has maintained that marketing should push viewers to the channel, not become a tool to be No. 1.

According to the executive, the issue has been exaggerated due to rivalries within the broadcasting community. He said the backlash has emerged primarily because certain players feel disadvantaged.

He also questioned the ministry’s technical understanding of how landing pages work. “A landing page only appears on a hard boot, when you physically restart the set-top box. If you soft-boot—switch off and on through the remote—the TV opens on the last channel you viewed, not on the landing page. So, will you exclude that channel from TRPs as well? It’s not as simple as they imagine.”

As reported exclusively by BestMediaInfo.com, the I&B Ministry has proposed segregating data for predefined landing LCNs from the final TRP ratings, rather than excluding first tune-ins.

The cable industry fears that the removal of landing pages will lead to a sharp drop in revenues for MSOs, many of whom are already struggling with shrinking margins due to rising infrastructure costs and stagnant subscription growth.

The executive warned that if landing pages are removed from viewership data and treated only as a marketing tool, cable industry revenues will fall by 10–15 per cent, depending on the MSO. The industry is already declining, he said, and taking away another 10–15 per cent will only accelerate that fall.

The cable industry also plans to seek compensation if landing pages are scrapped. The executive said that whatever revenue MSOs currently generate through landing pages will disappear. Irrespective of landing pages, if the mechanism is removed, MSOs will ask broadcasters to share a portion of the advertising revenue pie with them, he noted.

Industry seeking dialogue

Even as the matter remains sub judice in the Supreme Court, both camps appear determined to hold their ground.

The I&B Ministry, according to sources, is widening its consultations to avoid legal challenges but remains committed to delinking landing-page viewership from TRPs.

For now, the cable sector is preparing for what it calls an unnecessary disruption. “The government will face strong opposition and will be forced to reconsider,” the MSO executive said. “We will meet the Ministry and explain that this move is unnecessary and based on lobbying by certain broadcasters, and will further damage a sector already in trouble.”