The Asian Development Bank has released a thoughtful study on issues surrounding trade in Audio-Visual Services (which includes the international pay-TV industry). The paper (“Audio-Visual Services: International Trade and Cultural Policy”) was discussed at an ADB /OECD seminar in New Delhi in January 2012.
The paper concludes there may be good reasons for governments to promote their own audio-visual industries and maintain local cultures. But it also says that some types of measures are less likely to damage economic growth than others. Subsidies for local production, and even-handed constraints on media control and concentration were cited as more beneficial; quotas restricting international trade as more damaging. The paper notes that.
The entire paper can be downloaded here