Though there are reports that the phenomenon may occur between March 4 to 18 and disturb transmission, especially that of DTH and cable, the industry players in the country are not unduly worried.
"The sunspots may at the most affect very few channels coming on certain frequencies and that too for a very brief period of just two to three minutes. On the whole, viewers will not face any problem of black-out or transmission witnessing any major disturbance," said a representative of Dish TV.
Slightly hazy or disturbed transmission could be witnessed for a brief period, the representative said.Scientifically, as the number of sunspots (dark spots on the surface of the Sun) build up, the Sun’s magnetic field gets charged up. Eventually sunspots release waves of charged particles (also known as flares) in space, which affect satellite transmission.
Cable operators, on their part say, that more than them, the transmission of DTH services would be affected as they rely on satellites for telecast. "I don’t think this phenomenon of sunspots will affect us much. There could be some disturbances on cable transmission, but the telecast on the whole would be fine. DTH operators may face problems," President of Cable Operators Federation of India (COFI) Roop Sharma said.
Tata Sky officials, however, refused to comment.
An industry source said such phenomenon keep on occurring throughout the year and nobody can actually do anything about them, and till now there have not been any disturbances on television transmission and any major problem is also not expected.