BENGALURU: Carriage fees have dropped by approximately 5 per cent for existing deals and by about 7 per cent for new channel launches is one of the highlights of the seventh edition (R7) of the Chrome Carriage Optimizer Annual Report (CCO) by Chrome Data Analytics & Media (Chrome DAM).
CCO gives headend wise average carriage fee spends for placing channels across individual cable networks. It takes into account the footprint of individual cable networks and co-relates the same to the average carriage fee spend for a particular band/frequency on that particular network. Chrome DAM says that the CCO report entails region-wise, market-wise and MSO wise carriage fee spends further broken down to individual cable operator level across the country.Chrome DAM claims that CCO is a tool actively used by broadcasters to indicate the carriage fee return on investments across cable networks in 3300 plus cities of India.
Chrome DAM CEO Pankaj Krishna said, “While all three leaders uphold divergence against RIO, the verdict will take some more time to see the light. Even phase IV attributed much less alteration against what was anticipated, as the carriage trend continues to be where it was in FY 2016 to 17. As per the Chrome CCO R7, the carriage fees have dropped by an average of ~7 per cent nationally over the last one year with the CCO Cost per Subscriber (CPS) coming down from Rs 7.17 to Rs 6.75 - (which as per TRAI was to ideally be a CPS of 20 paisa). With rural gaining more significance and emerging as a tie breaker on the viewership front, the need is to understand the structure of the deals to optimise the distribution investments, and hence the Chrome Carriage Optimiser – R7 to map the headend wise carriage fee spends for placing channels across individual cable networks, the objective of which is to empower the broadcasters with an independent audit across cable networks in 3300+ cities of India”.
The highlights of CCO R7 include:

1. The carriage fees have dropped by about 5 per cent for existing deals and approximately 7.per cent for the new launches.
2. As compared to R6, the CCO Cost per Subscriber (CPS) has come down from Rs 7.17 to Rs 6.75 - (As per TRAI the CPS was to be 20 paisa)
3. North has emerged as the costliest region in terms of carriage fee/deals.
4. The gap between CCO for existing and new launches has reduced over the years owing to digitization and increase in bandwidth of the networks.
5. DEN commands the highest CCO amongst national MSOs, followed by Siti and GTPL.
6. Coverage of networks in R1 to R7 has grown by 1509 per cent (from 200 to 3218).

Top lines 1) National Top lines
a. Top MSOs – Subs* vs. CPS** - Ranking

b. Top MSOs – Subs vs. CPS - %Gain/Drop

According to Chrome DAM R7: 2) Top 2 MSOs across metros
a. Delhi
i. Subs – DEN & Hathway
ii. CPS – DDC & DEN
b. Mumbai
i. Subs – Hathway – & IN Cable
ii. CPS – DEN & YOU
c. Kolkata
i. Subs – Siti & GTPL
ii. CPS- GTPL & Siti
d. Chennai
i. Subs – SCV & TCCL
ii. CPS – SCV & TCCL
e. Bangalore
i. Subs – Hathway & Siti
ii. CPS – DEN & Hathway
f. Hyderabad
i. Subs – Hathway & Siti
ii. CPS – Siti & IN
(Source: Chrome Carriage Optimizer, Round 7, June 2018)
3) Top 2 MSOs across Regions
a. North
i. Subs – Den & Fastway
ii. CPS – Fastway & DEN
b. East
i. Subs – Siti & GTPL
ii. CPS – Ortel & GTPL
c. West
i. Subs – GTPL & Hathway
ii. CPS – DEN & GTPL
d. South
i. Subs – ARASU & Siti
ii. CPS - SCV & TCCL
e. Central
i. Subs – SR & Siti
ii. CPS – DIGI & Hathway
(Source: Chrome Carriage Optimizer, Round 7, June 2018)
4) Genre-wise Carriage Index
a. News – 100 per cent
b. GEC – 82 per cent
c. Music – 88 per cent
d. Movies – 86 per cent
(Source: Chrome Carriage Optimizer, Round 7, June 2018)
Subs* - Active Subscribers attached to network
CPS** - Cost per Subscriber by network