ITV

Category: I&B Ministry

  • Allow news on private FM: international radio broadcasters association

    Allow news on private FM: international radio broadcasters association

    NEW DELHI: Madrid-based Association International De RadioDifusion (AIR) and International Association of Broadcasting (IAB) have written to the Indian government exhorting green signal to news on private radio FM stations here.

    In a letter dispatched today to the information and broadcasting ministry in Delhi, the international association of private radio broadcasters, including FM, has also attached supportive documents on the regulatory environment from all across the globe where hard core news is allowed on private FM radio stations.

    In India, private FM radio stations are barred from carrying any news and current affairs programming, except information relating to the weather and stock market quotes.

    According to AIR and IAB president Alfonso Ruiz De Assin, “I fail to understand why news is not allowed in India (on private stations) as radio is the fastest medium and extremely user-friendly tool of communication.”

    Early this morning at Madrid (Spain), the general assembly of IAB, in principle, agreed to grant Association of Radio Operators of India (AROI) an active membership. IAB is the global body of private FM Radio broadcasters with more than 17,000 frequencies as members.

    AROI co-coordinator and BAG Infotainment CEO Rajiv Mishra said, “We are glad to get membership of IAB and are hopeful that news will be allowed on private FM radio soon.”

  • MSO’s should be marketing CAS now: Sameer Nair

    MSO’s should be marketing CAS now: Sameer Nair

    MUMBAI: The cable fraternity is wasting the huge first mover advantage they already have in hand vis-a-vis pushing addressability in chasing the mandating of CAS, feels Star Entertainment India CEO Sameer Nair.

    Reiterating Star’s well documented opposition to mandated CAS, Nair asserts that the MSOs are seriously missing a trick on the matter in their “all-consuming” focus on getting a mandate out that will fix a time frame for the rollout of CAS.
    Nair drew attention to the latest reports circulating indicating that it could be anywhere between six to eight months at the minimum for the mandated CAS rollout to take off (if at all).

    According to Nair, even as big corporate players were preparing the ground for different addressable delivery platforms to roll out, the cable fraternity were only focussed on getting a cut-off date in place for the rollout of CAS.

    Nair is of the view that with the imminent arrival of Tata-Sky DTH, Zee’s Dish TV ramping up and the big telecom players aggressively pushing ahead with IPTV, market forces would soon make the whole debate irrelevant and the MSOs may well end up “missing the addressability bus”.

    Nair averred that MSOs should instead be focussing their efforts on attractively packaging and marketing CAS to their direct points to begin with and concurrently convincing their franchisees of the need to get CAS going, government or no government.

    Another issue he raised was on the inability of many cable ops to deliver on CAS even if it was mandated. He said that barring a few big MSOs, most operators were simply not ready for CAS. Neither did they have the set top boxes nor the subscriber management systems in place to get it off the ground.

    According to Nair, in such a scenario, the likely result would be a blackout of pay channels in many areas, as had been witnessed in Chennai. But the difference here, he pointed out, was that unlike in Chennai, where there was no great demand for pay channels, in this case it would more likely be because of inability to deliver.

  • FM radio ops form panel on music rights, infra issues

    FM radio ops form panel on music rights, infra issues

    NEW DELHI: The FM radio operators of Indian today formed a nine-member committee to look in to various issues related to infrastructure, music royalty and interacting with various organizations like the Broadcast Engineering Society India Ltd and pubcaster Prasar Bharati, which is slated to rent out some of its transmissions towers.

    According to a statement from the Association of Radio Operators of India (AROI), the panel’s mandate is to try negotiating better deals with infrastructure providers and organization that deal in music copyright issues.

    The music royalty issue is a contentious matter with AROI alleging that the Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL) and another music rights organization have made irrational demands for music rights overlooking the fact that a uniform rights fee could not be applied on small and big radio operators alike.

    PPL is the copyright society in respect of sound recordings and is registered with the government. It is mainly engaged in administering the broadcasting / telecasting and public performance rights on behalf of over 139 music companies that are its members.

    The AROI panel includes BAG Infotainment’s Radio Masti CEO Rajiv Mishra, Radio Mirchi CEO Prashant Panday, Radio Today chief Anil Mehra, Radio City CEO Apoorva Purohit, Syntech Informatics CEO Ashok Narayan, ABP radio CEO Sanjay Prasad and Mathrubhumi Radio chief executive George Sebastian.

    Two positions have been kept vacant for representatives from the Anil
    Ambani-controlled Adlabs Radio and Sun TV.

  • Jaitley issues warning on titillating programming

    Jaitley issues warning on titillating programming

    Indian information and broadcasting minister Arun Jaitley issued a stern warning to TV channels which are banking on nudity and semi-nudity or provocative programming to attract audiences and generate viewership.

    “People have protested about how some organisations are taking advantage of liberal norms in India. Why should you have a stripper in a airconditioner ad which was shown recently on television? Why should a condom commercial be so erotic and put on television for all to see,” he asked. “If fashion is to be marketed in terms of transparent clothing, and every decency violated on TV screens, I don’t know if we can allow that. The cable and satellite industry has to morally police itself. Also advertisers. There are issues which affect our sensibilities. I don’t think Indian society is prepared for this. We want a liberal regime. Hard censorship is abhorrent to any democracy. But if industry is not interested then we may have to step in.”

    Jaitley was speaking while addressing a gathering organised by FICCI on what Indian entertainment should be doing to ensure rapid growth in the new millennium on 30 March.

    Jaitley was pretty caustic about his ministry’s position on this issue. Should the government step in when we have control devices such as child locks, he was asked. Should it not be the responsibility of the parent or adult?

    He responded icicly: “The industry has absolutely no responsibility does it? TV censorship in India is not in the form of pre-censorship. It is like the green channel in the Customs where the onus is on you to declare honestly. But if we allow some channels which are not comlying honestly than five others will get in and take advantage of our liberal attitude. ”

    Going by Jaitley’s statements it is quite likely that the government may shortly come out with a ban against the Michael Adam promoted Fashion Television, which is generating high viewerships in India mainly because of scantily clad models. Jaitley had banned Russian channel TB6 last year because it showed pornographic films and had ordered Indian cable networks to stop carrying it on their networks. Most Indian cable TV operators have complied since.

  • Govt turns down IBF plea on downlink norm

    Govt turns down IBF plea on downlink norm

    NEW DELHI: The Indian government has turned down a request from the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) to extend the 180-day deadline for fulfilling newly-formulated downlinking norms by broadcasting companies.

    In a letter to the information and broadcasting ministry, the IBF, an apex body of TV companies operating in India, had sought two months extension on the deadline since the downlink application form had been put out by the ministry on its website around 25h January 2006.

    The government had given all TV companies a 180-day period from 11 November 2005 (when the guidelines were formulated and announced) to fulfill all conditions listed in the downlink policy to get landing rights in India.

    The Indian government’s downlink policy has been a subject of debate in the broadcast industry with some players and industry bodies like the Hong Kong-based Casbaa terming the conditions harsh that will affect various business models of companies concerned.

    Amongst the many conditions, the most important one being that all TV channels beaming into India will have to register themselves with the government/designated authority and establish a permanent establishment here irrespective of the fact whether they are uplinking from India or outside.

    Establishment of permanent establishment in India is aimed at making TV companies, managing channels uplinked out of India, answerable to Indian laws. This would also result in a higher outflow of money as taxes to be paid in India.

    In the past, there have been instances when the Indian arm of foreign
    broadcasting companies have pleaded before disputes tribunal that they were not governed by Indian laws as they are mere advertising concessionaries undertaking marketing activities.

  • I&B ministry finalizing terms of law on broadcast regulator

    I&B ministry finalizing terms of law on broadcast regulator

    MUMBAI: The terms of reference of a law that will bring about a separate broadcast regulator are almost ready.
    This was revealed to Indiantelevision.com by Information & Broadcasting secretary SK Arora on the sidelines of the convention for the business of entertainment, Ficci Frames, this morning in Mumbai.

    Once the framework of the law is finalized, it would be distributed among the interministerial committee for comments and any possible fine tuning, Arora said,”From here, the document would have to be scrutinized for a final say by the Union cabinet, after which it would then be presented before Parliament.”

    While Arora declined to give a time frame under which this process would move forward, he expressed confidence that from his ministry’s end, the law would be ready “at the soonest”.

    Queried about the role of the current regulator for both the telecom and broadcast sector, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), Arora noted that the challenges for the broadcast industry and telecom are different. First, it is important that convergence is facilitated within the broadcast sector. After that one can look at facilitating convergence between sectors i.e. broadcast and telecom. The regulatory body will work towards ensuring that the fruits of development are not vitiated by adversarial relations. “The aim of regulation is to preserve development. We will also be coming out with a regulation on content code,” he said.

    Ficci is assisting in formulating the draft of the regulation. The Group of Ministers (GoM) who concentrate on the Ice industry will fine-tune it. Then it will be sent to the cabinet. It will be passed when the cabinet approves of it. A further announcement on this regulation is expected in the coming weeks.

    Basically it is aimed at being a self regulatory mechanism. Arora however conceded that regulation always lags behind technological changes. The broadcast industry has been no exception. He also stressed the importance of content providers and creators reaching remote areas of the country. “Whether it is cable, DTH, cinema halls, no villager should be left behind. If we work on this, then the potential will be double than what has already been achieved.”

    Arora also highlighted the concern of piracy. He said that the government has been working with Ficci on the Optical Disc Law and this work will continue in the months ahead. “The reason why we approach the industry is that we want to have a regulatory framework that helps the industry move forward.”

    “Another important area that is growing is animation and gaming. We need investment from foreign players and leaders in this area. The challenge for us is to attract foreign firms in this area. At this time, there are foreign firms coming into India while Indian firms travel abroad. Foreign firms bring their brand in. However, Indian firms when they go abroad do so under an international brand. The exception is the Indian film industry and for this I want to congratulate them,” said Arora.

  • Govt role: CAS’ fate linked to political compulsions

    Govt role: CAS’ fate linked to political compulsions

    The Indian government (read the information and broadcasting ministry) is suddenly finding itself caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, which more often than not takes great pleasure in turning red.

    Sandwiched between a strident judiciary — justifiably so in the present circumstances — and the politics of running a coalition government with vocal allies (who seem to have a view on anything and everything), the Manmohan Singh regime is bound to find it difficult to implement a recent Delhi High Court order that in short says: implement conditional access system in the areas notified earlier by a previous Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition regime over 18 months ago.

    State-level elections in April-May would compel the government to give a deep thought to the so-called concerns of regional politicians. And, decision-making gets that much tougher when one of the states going to the polls, West Bengal, is ruled by a Left party, which is also a crucial ally of the federal government in New Delhi.

    The I&B ministry hasn’t yet held any talks with the various state governments where CAS is sought to be implemented. Nor have any meetings been held with industry stakeholders
    _____****_____

    Though the Delhi High Court order exhorts the I&B ministry to rise above regional level party politics and not use ‘public interest’ to influence an executive order (the notification related to CAS rollout) passed by the federal government, reticent politicians would definitely try to have their own way. Don’t forget that the I&B minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi’s parliamentary constituency lies in West Bengal and the street-smart politician has cut much of his political teeth in Bengal.

    With Kolkata in West Bengal, one of the metros targeted for CAS rollout, already swinging to the election tune, the I&B ministry would have to see how New Delhi’s Left-oriented allies react to the issue of CAS or ‘watching TV channels via a black box that would cost around Rs 3,000 (approximately $ 67),’ as some politicians are explaining addressability to the people.

    It can just be that the ministry goes in for an appeal one day ahead of the month-long court-mandated deadline
    _____****_____

    Though it hasn’t reached a crescendo, already there are murmurs amongst politicians of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), especially the local ones, on how CAS’ introduction around election time can be ‘disruptive’ and have telling effects on the electoral fortunes of the party in West Bengal.

    It is pertinent to note that the I&B ministry hasn’t yet held any talks with the various state governments where CAS is sought to be implemented. Nor have any meetings been held with industry stakeholders to discuss the issue in the light of the court’s observation.

    Apart from the West Bengal politicians, those representing the seven constituencies of Delhi in Parliament have already been petitioned by some cable operators on the ground that implementation of CAS might upset cable TV consumers of the National Capital Territory.

    With Delhi’s aam junta (hoi polloi) totally clueless on what CAS is all about — apart from what has been fed to them by politicians and the media — scepticism is bound to run all across on something new, which is not part of the basic infrastructure that is severely lacking here and making daily life that much more worrisome.

    And, the Congress-led Delhi government, trying to battle its own intra-party differences on demolition of illegal constructions all over Delhi (as directed by Delhi HC) that has left the denizens of the Capital fuming, the will to immediately implement another court order (on CAS) is definitely lacking.

    It would also be interesting to see how New Delhi could read the Delhi court order, which is not as simple as is being made out by many industry stakeholders — the benefits of CAS or addressability, notwithstanding.

    For the I&B ministry to plan a rollout of CAS as per the court order, it has to first revoke an executive order that suspended implementation of CAS.

    Now, here is the piece de resistance: the court order is silent on the fact whether addressability should be introduced, as per the prayer of the petitioners, ONLY in the south zones of the metro cities of Kolkata, Delhi, Chennai in Tamil Nadu and Mumbai in Maharashtra or the whole of the cities.

    After revoking an earlier notification, the federal government can stick to CAS’ introduction only in the south zones of the metros or interpret the court order as rollout in the whole of the cities. A clarification on the interpretation hasn’t been sought yet by the I&B ministry as there is a section that feels an appeal should be made against the present court order.

    If the government goes in for an appeal, which can turn out to be time consuming, then the timing of it would also be important. It can just be that the ministry goes in for an appeal one day ahead of the month-long court-mandated deadline.

    As things stand today, the government is keeping things fluid — deliberately so — to weigh all options, including the biggest challenge: political compulsions.