PEMRA Delays DTH Auction in Pakistan Yet Again

Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) has rescheduled the auction process of DTH licenses and date for the auction has been further delayed to October 31, 2016.

PEMRA had earlier announced to hold auction on October 3, 2016, while the last date for submission of application was August 15, 2016.

However the 116th Board meeting of the Authority, chaired by Absar Alam, has revised the schedule and now the last date for submitting the application is September 15, while Auction would be held on October 31, 2016.

The Authority also directed for crackdown against illegal Indian DTH in Pakistani markets.

Not to forget, this is not the first delay in DTH auction. PEMRA had previously planned to auction DTH licenses late last year, but whole processed was scrapped when new PEMRA chairman was appointed just one week ahead of auction.

The previously shortlisted companies will stay valid and they need not to apply afresh. However, they shall be required to furnish additional documents to meet the revised eligibility criteria given in the IM (information memorandum for DTH license auction).

The Information Memorandum (IM) including the eligibility criteria, application form, documents required, base price, bidding methodology, short listing procedure, the terms & conditions of license etc is also issued.

DTH License Fee Details

  • Three (3) licences for Direct-To-Home distribution service (DTH Licence), provided that there are enough eligible applicants, shall be awarded.
  • A single DTH Licence shall be awarded to any single applicant company.
  • The Base Price for DTH Licence shall be Pak Rs. 200 million
  • An annual variable licence fee of 2% of the gross revenue generated from DTH SERVICE & fixed annual fee of PKR 10 Million will be paid to PEMRA
  • The variable fee shall be waived of for initial three years w.e.f. the date of issuance of license.

DTH Auction

  • DTH licenses will be issued through an open bidding process on October 3rd, 2016
  • The applicant company shall submit application along with a non-refundable processing fee of Rs. 500,000/-in the form of Demand Draft or Pay Order drawn in favour of PEMRA.
  • The complete applications along with required documents must reach the address given below on or before 15-08-2016 till 1600 hours Pakistan Standard Time.
  • Only shortlisted applicant companies shall be invited to participate in the bidding process for the award of DTH Distribution Service licences.

Eligibility Criteria

  • DTH licenses won’t be issued to companies that operate in broadcast media (electronic TV channel holders).
  • One company must not control (directly or indirectly) more than one DTH license
  • Applicant must have at least 50% ownership from local partner.
  • Through above criteria, Jang and ARY group have become ineligible. Similarly, one telco — that was previously shortlisted — has also become ineligible too as it was fully owned by a foreign group.

Timeline for the auction of DTH licenses is as following

DTH


      • Yar pakistani channels bhi bohat ache programmes chalate hain har waqt indian channels ka rona kyun rote ho ap log ab to kafi ziada channels hogaye hain humare jo k humare cable walay saray k saray nahi dikha sakte or wese bhi apne country ko promote karna chahye apni product ko karna chahye movies chahe indian ho english ho channel pakistani ho fayda pakistan ka hi ho starlite filmax filmazia ye achi movies hi lagate hain

        • mein ne nahe kaha Pakistani channels bakwas hain. legally star tv channels like movies,world,plus,gold,utsav all are banned. But it is cable wala who still displays them. And ppl dont want to be limited to Pakistani tv channels. look at the example of DWN, it was failed due to lack of Indian tv channels.

          • You Know Nothing About DWN,
            There Are Many Indian Channels On DWN.
            Star Gold HD, Star Plus, Colors, Travel XP HD, NatGeo, Discovery, Discovery Science, Animal Planet, Sony Liv, Star Sports, AXN RED HD, Peace TV Urdu, Few Others.
            But No One In My Family Watch Indian Channels.
            The Problem Is That People Don’t Know About DWN.
            We Didn’t Even Know About DWN Until We Shifted To Our New House!!

            • yea yea they block it after few days saying it is banned. one of my relative has it and they complain about this all the time.

              • I Dont Know What You Are Talking About,
                But Im Using DWN For A Year Now & Indian Channels Are Working Just Fine!!
                I Can Share A Screenshot If You Want??!!! Homie

  • Eligibility criteria is tightening every time. Looks like Absar doesn’t want much competition for Hamza Shabaz’s sugar mill.

  • lol, One thing is for sure it will also fail on arrival. DWN has also tried to sell crystal clear picture on its network in big cities but they also failed. And the reason is lack of Indian channels, high cost of subscription and expensive equipment. DTH is also bound to fail like that. If indians can get a 800 INR cable set top box with hd channels and 1500 INR for a HD satellite box why people in Pakistan are charging 5000 PKR per cable set top box?. Furthermore license price for DTH in Pakistan is quite high even if compared with India. India has cheapest DTH service in the world so it is quite popular there and also in Pakistan.

    • DWN is failing (if not failed yet ) due to 3 reasons. 1- Can’t be used with multiple TV without extra equipment. 2- Their stupid opaque logo covers about 20% of the screen estate which gets in the way of important contents such as scorecard and also causes screen burn on plasma TV’s. 3- The upfront cost is too high.

      I don’t think Indian channels are necessary now since our channels are good enough especially news, dramas and cooking shows. People who buy indian DTH actually tend to miss pakistani channels. Most homes have 32+ inch TV’s now so DTH is the only way to get HD channels and use modern TV’s to their potential. IMO you can’t under estimate DTH potential in PK.

      • I used dishtv on sharing once although I am not a fan of Indian tv but I must tell u that i am not talking about just Hindi drama or movies channels many English language channels also don’t have landing rights in Pakistan. star movies and star world is excellent example. Have u ever heard about 3 ten sports channels?neo sports? Sony ESPN? Star sports select? Fx? No?. Indian dth has so many channels and Pakistani dth companies will find it very hard to compete against them. Videocon,sun direct also place their logo on top of every channel to stop piracy by cable operators. Digital satellite and cable also needs separate decorder for each tv too. If u need Pakistani channels so badly buy two 6 ft dish and 1600 rs reciever.

  • Yaar jo channel Asiasat 105 py free hain
    Paid channel ho jain ge dish py jesey k Filmax wagaira hogai hain,

  • hum pakistani dth ke haq main hain her month lakhon dollar indian dth re charge hone ki soorat main pakistan se bahar jatey hain jo humare mulik ke liey nuqisaan he …………………….

  • yeh he tu humare idaron ka roona he agr aik chairman chala jata he or doosra chairman aata he tu woh picheli tamam policcy ko rad ker deta he


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