Mumbaikars must submit channel preferences by July 25 or face blackout

22 lakh cable TV subscribers in Mumbai now have time until July 25 to duly fill up their consumer application forms (CAFs), following a deadline extension by TRAI. If subscribers fail to complete their CAFs by then, they may be subject to a ‘small-screen’ blackout, reports the Times of India.

Some relief! (Image credit: Getty Images)

These CAFs are where subscribers can list down the names of the paid channels they want to watch and then pay for them accordingly.

TRAI reportedly had to extend the deadline for Mumbai after it received a poor response from cable TV subscribers here. Anil Parab of Cable Operators and Distributors Association told TOI that the deadline extension has come about because 40 percent of cable TV subscribers in Mumbai have not filled up their forms yet. One source quoted by the report said, “MSOs have to give these forms to local cable operators, who are supposed to ask consumers to fill them up. The local cable operators have to then return the filled forms to MSOs. While MSOs claim they gave the forms, LCOs say they never received them.”

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Arvind Prabhu, President of the Maharashtra Cable Operators Federation though opines that this procedure should have been implemented at the time when consumers where switching to digital signals, last year. “Now, it is inconveniencing everyone, right from multi-system operators (MSOs) and local cable operators (LCOs) to viewers,” he laments.

Prabhu said further that the regulatory body has asked MSOs to shut down channels for two hours or blackout paid channels to “make subscribers understand the importance of filling up the form."