(1) No broadcaster shall engage in any practice or activity or enter into any understanding or arrangement including exclusive contracts with any distributor of television channels that prevents any other distributor of television channels from obtaining signals of television channel of such broadcaster for distribution.
(2) Every broadcaster shall, within sixty days of receipt of written request from a distributor of television channels for obtaining signals of television channel or within thirty days of signing of interconnection agreement with the distributor, as the case may be, provide, on non-discriminatory basis, the signals of television channel to the distributor or convey the reasons in writing for rejection of the request if the signals of television channel are denied to such distributor:
Provided that imposition of any term or condition by the broadcaster, which is unreasonable, shall be deemed to constitute a denial of request:
Provided further that this sub-regulation shall not apply to a distributor of television channels, who requests signals of a particular television channel from a broadcaster while at the same time demands carriage fee for distribution of that television channel or who is in default of payment to the broadcaster and continues to be in such default.
(3) If a broadcaster, proposes or stipulates for, directly or indirectly, placing the channel in any specified position in the electronic programme guide or assigning a particular channel number, as a pre-condition for providing signals, such pre-condition shall also amount to imposition of unreasonable condition.
Explanation: For removal of doubt, it is clarified that if a pay broadcaster offers discount, in non-discriminatory manner, through its reference interconnect offer on the maximum retail price of pay channel, within the limit as specified in sub-regulation (4) of regulation 7, to distributors of television channels for placing the channel in any specified position in the electronic programme guide or assigning particular channel number, such offer of discount shall not be considered a pre-condition.
(4) No broadcaster shall propose, stipulate or demand for, directly or indirectly, packaging of the channel in any particular bouquet offered by the distributor of television channels to subscribers.
(5) No broadcaster shall propose, stipulate or demand for, directly or indirectly, guarantee of a minimum subscriber base or a minimum subscription percentage for its channel or bouquet.
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Explanation: For removal of doubt, it is clarified that the subscription percentage of a channel or bouquet refers to the percentage of subscribers subscribing to a specific channel or bouquet out of average active subscriber base of a distributor.