Category: Regulators

Day 6: FM Phase III price crosses Rs 779 crore for 82 channels in 56 cities

NEW DELHI: A total of 82 channels in 56 Indian cities became provisionally winning channels with cumulative provisional winning price of approximately Rs 779 crore against their aggregate reserve price of Rs 395 crore at the end of the sixth day of bidding for FM Phase III.

Even as 24 rounds of the e-auction ended with four more rounds today (3 August), the provisional winning prices exceeded the total reserve price of the first batch by about Rs 228.68 crore or 41.56 per cent. The total reserve price of the first batch of 135 FM Channels in 69 existing cities of Phase III was Rs 550.18 crore.

The Auction Activity Requirement of 80 per cent set at the beginning of the auction continued to remain the same on the sixth day.

The sixth day was hectic but there were still no bids in as many as 13 cities though the provisional winning price steadied at the Clock round Price in the other cases.

The demand over the price in many cities fell by up to three per cent below the aggregate demand.

The Percentage Price Increment (in INR) applicable for the Next Clock Round was five per cent in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Guwahati, Rourkela, Jaipur, Kolhapur, Nagpur, Nasik, Patna, and Rajkot and eight per cent in Bhubaneswar.

The highest Provisional winning price – the same as the Clock round price at the start of the 24th round – was in Delhi – Rs 118.35 crore, followed by Mumbai – Rs 86.08 crore with both showing sizeable increase compared to the first three days.

Among cities recording more than Rs 10 crore, it rose sizeably in Bengaluru – Rs 66.34 crore, Ahmedabad – Rs 36.87 crore; Pune – Rs 32.45 crore, and Chennai – Rs 33.54 crore, Jaipur – Rs 11.52 crore and marginally in Chandigarh at Rs 15.92 crore.

Hyderabad at Rs 18 crore, Lucknow at Rs 14 crore and Cochin at Rs 10.21 crore remained static.

August 3, 2015
TDSAT permits Star India to verify Rajasthan MSO’s details despite BECIL report

NEW DELHI: Star India has been permitted by the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Arbitration Tribunal (TDSAT) to send its representative to the head-end of Rajasthan Infotech Media Services Pvt Ltd for further verification despite the report of the Broadcast Engineering Consultants (India) Ltd (BECIL).

The report by BECIL showed that the MSO’s systems were technically compliant with the statutory norms.

However, Star India wanted to verify the correctness of the commercial details.

Star India was therefore permitted by TDSAT chairperson Aftab Alam and members Kuldip Singh and BB Srivastava to obtain the commercial details, including SMS reports, from the MSO’s system for the past months.

The matter has been listed for further hearing on 19 August.

August 3, 2015
Agri graduates hired by AIR, no plans for recruitments for Kisan TV: Jaitley

NEW DELHI: All India Radio has appointed 26 agricultural graduates as Farm and Home/Farm Radio reporters for its programmes aimed at the farming community.

The Parliament was informed by Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley that these appointees are from the recently concluded recruitment for the post of Transmission Executive.

Meanwhile, he said Prasar Bharati has ‘no proposal as of now’ to recruit agricultural graduates for Kisan TV channel.

He said Kisan TV was being run by the in-house staff of Doordarshan and by engagement of casual staff according to the requirement of the channel.

Experts from the agricultural field are consulted from time to time as required, he added in reply to a question.

August 2, 2015
Govt. cans plans of introducing comprehensive broadcast legislation

NEW DELHI: Contrary to plans of the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, the present government has said there are no plans to introduce a comprehensive broadcast legislation in the Parliament.

Replying to a question in the Lok Sabha, Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley said, “No such proposal is under consideration of the Ministry.”

The previous government had not only drawn up plans for such legislation but placed it on the Ministry website. In fact, a draft of the proposed Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill 2007 – which was a revised version of the proposed legislation of 2006 – is still on the website.

Meanwhile, Jaitley told Lok Sabha that all the areas uncovered by terrestrial transmitters along with rest of the country have been provided with multichannel TV coverage through Doordarshan’s free to air direct-to-home Freedish service anywhere in the country.

Doordarshan coverage is estimated to be available to about 92 per cent population spread over about 81 per cent area of the country.

DD has 1416 TV transmitters of varying power in terrestrial mode, whereas DD’s Free Dish services on DTH has currently 64 TV channels on air.

August 2, 2015
FM Phase III Day 5: Delhi crosses Rs 100 crore as total bids touch Rs 714 crore

NEW DELHI: Even as twenty rounds of FM Phase III e-auction ended with four more rounds today, the provisional winning price for one channel in Delhi crossed the Rs 100 crore mark.

The bidding for this one channel in Delhi got Provisional winning price of Rs 105.23 crore, which is more than three times its reserve price of Rs 31.42 crore.

At the close of the fifth day of bidding, 80 channels in 55 cities became provisionally winning channels with cumulative provisional winning price of around Rs 714 crore against their aggregate reserve price of about Rs 391 crore.

Thus the summation of provisional winning prices exceeded the total reserve price of the first batch by about Rs 163.48 crore or 29.71 per cent. The total reserve price of the first batch of 135 channels in the existing 69 cities is Rs 550.18 crore.

The fifth day of the e-auction was hectic but there were still no bids in as many as 14 cities though the provisional winning price steadied at the Clock round Price in the other cases.

The Auction began for the fifth day with Auction Activity Requirement set at 80 per cent.

The demand over the price in many cities fell by up to three per cent below the aggregate demand.

The Percentage Price Increment (in INR) applicable for the Next Clock Round was five in the metros of Delhi and Mumbai, and in Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Rourkela, Jaipur, Kolhapur, Nagpur, Nasik, Patna, and Rajkot and eight per cent in Bhubaneswar.

The highest Provisional winning price – the same as the Clock round price at the start of the twentieth round – was in Delhi – Rs 105.23 crore followed by Mumbai – Rs 82.72 crore with both showing sizeable increase compared to the first three days.

Among cities recording more than Rs 10 crore, it rose sizeably in Bengaluru – Rs 54.58 crore; Ahmedabad – Rs 30.33 crore; Pune – Rs 29.11 crore and Chennai – Rs 29.82 crore and marginally in Chandigarh at Rs 15.92 crore.

Hyderabad at Rs 18 crore, Lucknow at Rs 14 crore and Cochin at Rs 10.21 crore remained static.

July 31, 2015
20 TV channels banned for flouting rules over last three years: Jaitley

NEW DELHI: There have been 20 cases in the past three years in which certain television channels were asked to prohibit transmission for specific time ranging from one to 30 days, the Lok Sabha was told on 31 July.

Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Minister Arun Jaitley said action was taken in a total of 86 cases with the Ministry issuing specific warnings or advisories to channels to comply with the Programme and Advertising Codes or directing them to scroll apologies on their channel in the other 66 cases.

The Minister said there is no provision of pre-censorship of the content telecast on TV channels but all programmes telecast are required to adhere to the Programme Code prescribed under the Cable TV Networks (Regulation) Act 1995 and the rules framed there under.

“Action is taken whenever any violation of the said code is noticed or brought to the notice of the Ministry,” he added.

Section 5 of the Programme Code provides that “No person shall transmit or re-transmit through a cable service any programme, unless such programme is in conformity with the prescribed programme code.” Accordingly, Programme Code has been notified through the Cable Television Networks Rules, 1994 under Rule 6.

Click here for list of channels banned for varying periods during the last three years.

July 31, 2015
TDSAT asks TRAI to examine HITS operators’ inter-connect agreements

NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), has now been asked to examine whether a broadcaster’s RIO should form the basis for negotiations to enter into an interconnect agreement with the distributor of signals.

The Telecom Disputes Settlement and Arbitration Tribunal (TDSAT), which had earlier asked TRAI to re-examine the issue of Digital Addressable System (DAS) tariffs, also wants to know if the RIO is only a fall back basis in case the negotiations between the broadcaster and the distributor for entering into interconnect agreement otherwise fails.

Summing up the issues that came up for consideration in two cases, the Tribunal asked whether an interconnect agreement between a broadcaster and a distributor of signals on a fixed fee basis, completely dehors the broadcaster’s RIO, can be said to be in accordance with the provisions of the Regulations.

It also asked if it is open to the broadcaster to give discounts, concessions and facilities to distributors of signals on a deal to deal basis or is the broadcaster obliged to frame a standard scheme of discounts, concessions and facilities and make it public so that it may be available to all similarly situated distributors equally.

The Tribunal also asked the status of a Headend In The Sky (HITS) operator vis-a-vis a broadcaster for the purpose of inter-connect arrangements, and whether a HITS operator is comparable to a large MSO operating on a pan India basis.

TDSAT chairman Justice Aftab Alam along with members Kuldip Singh and B B Srivastava were examining two cases filed by Noida Software Technology Park Ltd against Media Pro and Taj Television.

The Tribunal wanted a clear stand from TRAI and also directed that this order should be placed on the Tribunal website in the form of a notice with copies being sent to the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), MSO Alliance and DTH Operators’ Association, as any adjudication of these questions is likely to affect the broadcasting sector as a whole fundamentally.

The Tribunal said it would be open to any stakeholders to intervene and address the Tribunal on the issue.

Listing the matter for further hearing on 11 August, it said any applications for intervention may be filed within one week from today (30 July).

July 30, 2015
Day 4: FM Phase III provisional winning price crosses Rs 550 crore mark

NEW DELHI: The summation of provisional winning prices at the end of the fourth day of the FM Phase III surpassed Rs 550.18 crore, which is the total reserve price of 135 channels.

The fourth day of the e-auction showed marked enthusiasm but there were still no bids in as many as 14 cities and the provisional winning price was lower than the Clock round Price in some cases.

In all, 16 rounds of e-auction have been completed including four today (30 July) for the 135 FM channels in all the existing 69 cities of the first stage being opened.

At the close of the fourth day of bidding, 80 channels in 55 cities became provisionally winning channels with cumulative provisional winning price of around Rs 643 crore against their aggregate reserve price of about Rs 391 crore.

The auction began for the fourth day with Auction Activity Requirement set at 80 per cent.

The demand over the price in many cities fell by up to three per cent below the aggregate demand.

The Percentage Price Increment (in INR) applicable for the Next Clock Round was five per cent in the metros of Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai, and in Bhubaneswar, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Rourkela, Jodhpur, and Pune.

The highest Provisional winning price – the same as the Clock round price at the start of the sixteenth round – was in Delhi – Rs 86.57 crore, followed by Mumbai – Rs 78 crore with both showing sizeable increase compared to the first three days. On the other hand, Hyderabad was at Rs 18 crore, Lucknow at Rs 14 crore, Cochin at Rs 10. 21 crore and Chandigarh at Rs 15.76 crore.

Among cities recording more than Rs 10 crore, it rose sizeably in Bengaluru – Rs 44.90 crore; Pune – Rs 29.11 crore; Chennai – Rs 25.50 crore and Ahmedabad – Rs 24.95 crore.

July 30, 2015
MIB does not keep record of non-carriage of mandatory channels: Jaitley

NEW DELHI: While multi-system operators (MSOs) and direct-to-home (DTH) operators are expected to mandatorily carry a total of 24 Doordarshan channels in digital addressable system (DAS) areas, the number of channels to be carried in the non-DAS areas is 10.

The channels to be carried by DAS and non-DAS areas includes Gyan Darshan, which is currently off-air but Doordarshan sources tell Indiantelevision.com that some arrangement was being worked out to re-start the channel run by the Indira Gandhi National Open University.

The channels to be carried in the DAS areas include 22 DD channels including DD National, DD Bharati, DD News, DD India, DD Sports, and Kisan Channel. The other DD channels are language channels. Other than DD, the channels for DAS areas are Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha TV, and Gyan Darshan.

The channels to be carried in non-DAS areas are: DD National, DD News, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha TV, DD Sports, DD Urdu, DD Bharati, Kisan Channel, Gyan Darshan, and one regional language of Doordarshan channel of the State in which the cable operator is located.

The Government has also listed a schedule of channels to be carried mandatorily by operators including local cable operators in the 35 states and union territories.

Notifications were issued in this regard in September 2013 and again on 25 May this year.

Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Minister Arun Jaitley told Parliament that his Ministry does not have any record of such complaints received as the authorised officers – district magistrate, or a sub-divisional magistrate, or a Commissioner of Police within his local limits of jurisdiction – have powers to take action for non-carriage of the mandatory channels by cable operators on their networks under Section 11 of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act 1995.

An advisory was also issued in June when it was brought to the notice of the Ministry that a few MSOs were not carrying some of the mandatory channels. It was clarified that non-carriage of these channels shall attract action /punishment under Sections 11and l8 of the Cable Act. Earlier, the Ministry had written to all concerned registered MSOs for DAS notified areas to carry the mandatory channels on their networks.

July 30, 2015
Day 3: FM Phase III sees over Rs 170 crore increase in provisional winning price

NEW DELHI: The third day of the e-auction for FM Radio channels in Phase III picked up marginally but there were no bids in as many as 14 cities and the provisional winning price was lower than the Clock round Price in some cases.

In all, 12 rounds of e-auction have been completed including four today for all the 135 FM channels in all the existing 69 cities of the first stage being opened.

At the close of third day of bidding, 80 channels in 55 cities became provisionally winning channels with cumulative provisional winning price of around Rs 549 crore against their aggregate reserve price of about Rs 377 crore.

The Auction began today with Auction Activity Requirement set at 80 per cent.

The demand over the price in many cities fell by up to three per cent below the aggregate demand.

The Percentage Price Increment (in INR) applicable for the Next Clock Round was five in the metros of Mumbai and Chennai, and in Bhubaneswar, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Rourkela, Jodhpur, and Pune and went up to eight per cent in Dehi.

The highest Provisional winning price – the same as the Clock round price at the start of the eighth round – was in Mumbai – Rs 67.38 crore followed closely by Delhi – Rs 65.45 crore, with both showing sizeable increase compared to the first two days.

Hyderabad and Lucknow remained static at Rs 18 crore and Rs 14 crore respectively. Among cities recording more than Rs 10 crore, it rose sizeably in Bengaluru – Rs 36.94 crore; and marginally higher in Chennai – Rs 20.98 crore; Pune – Rs 23.95 crore; and Ahmedabad – Rs 20.53 crore. In Cochin at Rs 10.21 crore and Chandigarh at Rs 15.61 crore, it fell just marginally below the clock round price.

July 29, 2015