Singapore Government responds to new pay-TV regulations

According to reports in The Straits Times, Yew is reported have said that the drop in the quality of pay-TV programming forced the Government to intervene and set up new rules requiring telcos to share exclusive content last month. He said the telcos were not putting enough resources and investment into packaging and providing added value.

In a related development, Lui said that the Singapore Government is investigating a possible leak of the changes in the pay-TV landscape before they were announced last month.

According to a report in The Business Times, industry players have shown concern that the policy change could have been leaked before the formal announcement as it would afford pay-TV players time to lock in content before the policy kicked in. 

StarHub has denied having any knowledge of the policy amendment before 12 March, while SingTel has declined to comment.

In the second week of March, the Singapore Government announced that pay-TV providers including SingTel and StarHub will be able to carry exclusive content purchased by another player in a move that is aimed at making such content accessible and cheaper for consumers.

A industry analyst said that in an extreme situation this development could lead to regulatory troubles for the pay-TV operators.

"If a pay-TV operator has signed contracts for 11 February to 12 March then it is quite against the spirit of the regulation. In an extreme situation the government can withdraw the cable license of the operator who has signed these contracts resulting in advertising, users and programming moving to a competitor. The implications of this development could be huge."