The Madras high court Wednesday put on hold the digitisation process of cable television viewing from analogue mode here till Nov 5. The central government had mandated switching over to digital mode from Oct 31.
The petition against the central government's decision was filed by Chennai Metro Cable TV Operators Association seeking an extension of the deadline on the grounds of lack of sufficient number of set top boxes.
According to a representative of the association, the court will hear the case Nov 5.
Cable television operators said around four million set top boxes were needed out of which only 160,000 were available in the city and a majority of the viewers would suffer if the deadline was not extended.
The central Government mandated that cable television broadcast should go digital from Oct 31 in four metropolitan cities - Chennai, Mumbai, New Delhi and Kolkata.
According to industry estimates, there were around four million cable connections in Chennai. On the other hand, only 250,000 set top boxes were issued apart from the 600,000 direct to home connections.