ITV

Tag: Broadcasting

  • 24 complaints on misleading & surrogate ads

    24 complaints on misleading & surrogate ads

    NEW DELHI: A total of 13 complaints against surrogate advertisements and 11 against misleading advertisements on the electronic media have been received in the recent past, Parliament was told.

    Meanwhile, the Department of Consumer Affairs is holding a series of consultations and workshops with all stakeholders in different parts of the country to create awareness about this issue.

    In 2010-11 and 2011-12, a total of seven and eight complaints respectively were filed about misleading advertisements in the print media, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting C M Jatua told the Lok Sabha.

    Jatua said the Consumer Protection Act 1986 had ample provisions to act against advertisements making false or misleading representation and these had been duly notified as Unfair Trade practices for which a consumer could approach the Consumer Courts.

    The Press Council Act and the Journalistic Norms drawn up by the Council, and the Cable TV Networks (Regulation) Act apart from the Advertising Standards Council of India also had powers to deal with such complaints.

    In reply to another question, Parliament was informed that a representative of the Department of Consumer Affairs was now represented on the Inter-Ministerial Committee which hears complaints against TV channels.

  • Turner Broadcasting sets up internal agency for connect with clients

    Turner Broadcasting sets up internal agency for connect with clients

    MUMBAI: Turner Broadcasting System Asia Pacific, Inc is restructuring its sponsorship and promotions department to Turner Media Solutions, a full-service in-house agency designed to create customised marketing solutions.

    Turner Media Solutions will aim to develop holistic campaigns to connect advertisers with audiences across Turner‘s 12 entertainment brands, the company said.

    Coinciding with this announcement is the launch of TurnerMediaSolutions.com, an online creative hub showcasing Turner‘s entertainment portfolio as well as a library of campaign innovation and case studies.

    “As a leader in kids‘ and entertainment content creation we‘re well placed to offer our clients this core expertise, crafted exactly to their business needs. Whether partners want to engage with kids in India, families in Australia or affluent travelers in Japan, TurnerMediaSolutions.com provides immediate insights into how we can help create something truly unique that will deliver on their objectives,” said Turner Media Solutions director Con Apostolopoulos.

    From animation and customised game development in the kids‘ space to original programming throughout Turner‘s portfolio of channels, Turner Media Solutions intends to integrate brands with its programming and characters across TV, web, mobile and live events.

    Leveraging the expertise and broader reach of Turner‘s research and communications team, and retail specialists across the region, the in-house agency aims to add significant value to company‘s partners.

    “Through Turner Media Solutions, we aim to establish close connections with clients and agencies and hope they‘ll find our new online creative hub an invaluable resource. We‘re committed to creating a very fluid conversation with our clients and TurnerMediaSolutions.com is a great springboard for new ideas,” stated Apostolopoulos.

  • Wanted: More than just editors

    Wanted: More than just editors

    The Mumbai attacks, for all their tragedy and pathos, were an unparalleled television event. It was news television that became the conduit of a shocked nation‘s horror and anger as we watched the terrible spectacle unfold in our living rooms. Mumbai was to be a game-changer at many levels – diplomatic, administrative and political. A year later, as the blanket coverage of the one-year retrospectives winds up on the networks, it is time to take stock. As the media focuses attention on the slap-dash political legacy of Mumbai – with many of the central characters of 2008 back where they were in 2009 – it is also time to focus the lens back on the news networks.

    Any discussion of broadcast reform in India gets stuck between two poles: the controlling impulses of a state always looking to turn the clock back and take back lost control and the need to maintain the independence of news television. For all its flaws, the creation of the Indian satellite news industry has been a landmark struggle unparalleled in the history of global news and the fear has always been that any attempt at regulation risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Yet, some kind of a real watchdog there must be. In a different context, the untamed impulses of Wall Street‘s bankers that led to the global economic crisis are an example of what unbridled laissez faire can lead to. Fifteen years after the landmark Supreme Court judgment that freed the airwaves, India remains the most unregulated television market in the world and while this suits the owners and the editors in their no-holds barred quest for revenues, Mumbai underscored the need for an unbiased oversight body comprising all stakeholders more than ever.

    Two provisos need to be added here. Much of the governmental criticism of the TV networks in 2008 focused on how television became the world‘s window into the ineptitude of the Indian state – too many spokespeople, too much ground confusion and too many operational details being divulged by the then Home Minister. Let us be clear. That was not television‘s fault. The state cannot blame the messenger for its own failures. In the early hours of Mumbai, television coverage did what it was meant to do: it brilliantly captured the scramble, the confusion and the reality on the ground.

    The real problem with television coverage in the days after Mumbai was a more deep-set one that we are used to seeing in its coverage of other events as well; that of sensationalism and the new addition to the vocabulary of newsrooms: “aggressive” journalism. The networks, in varying degrees of complicity, became not outlets of information but channels of propaganda and the lowest common denominator. The same sensitivity that goes into creating the saanp-seedhi genre of news went into much of the post-Mumbai coverage with at least one top network talking seriously about the option of a first-nuclear strike on Pakistan. This was not a considered news response; this was the response of a petulant child with the candy of TRPs hanging in front.

    The post-Mumbai proposal to provide the channels only edited and pre-censored footage of emergency situations was preposterous and was rightly opposed by TV editors and all those who believe in the institution of the free press. But it should also have been a moment to pause and consider how much of this statist counter-reaction was a result of TV‘s own impetuosity. What we have in the form of oversight today in news television is tall promises of self-regulation that are given with seeming sincerity but always fall prey to the weekly tyranny of ratings. Mumbai should have been an opportunity for genuine reform, one that seems lost.

    Ambika Soni‘s relatively benign and thoughtful attitude to news must not lead TV owners and editors into a comfort zone of complacency. Personalities come and go but the problem with satellite television regulation is structural, one that goes into the heart of the unique manner in which the industry grew in its initial years as an illegal medium. There is still no overarching regulatory body to oversee broadcasting issues. There is no Indian equivalent of the American Federal Communication Commission and Indian broadcasting remains highly unregulated. Compared to other developed television markets Indian broadcasting exists within a highly confusing maze of overlapping controls. For instance, India is one of the few developed TV markets with no cross-media ownership laws. Such a state of affairs, at a time when India is fast emerging as a new global media capital cannot be sustainable.

    In a sense, Indian television has continued to operate in a legal framework that is more akin to that utterly untranslatable North Indian word: jugaad. Jaipal Reddy‘s Broadcasting Bill of 1997 was based on British law after studying the broadcasting systems of six countries – USA, UK, France, Germany, Italy and Australia – and sought to create a new legal structure for broadcasting but disappeared into oblivion when the Gujral government fell. Priyaranjan Dasmunshi‘s draconian version of such a Bill is now on the backburner. Since the 1995 Cable Networks Regulation Act (which has limited uses), Parliament has only managed to pass one major broadcasting-related bill – the 2007 Act on mandatory sharing of sports feeds. And that only passed because of the immense drawing power of cricket.

    The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has periodically tried to fill the regulatory vacuum with draft legislation and summary executive directives/notifications, most of these designed to assert its control. It has consistently tried to put the genie of broadcasting back into the bottle. Looking at it from a historic perspective, the contentious twists and turns over CAS and the news uplinking policy changes when NDTV bifurcated from Star News are perfect examples of the minefield that is the current broadcasting legal framework.

    War, they say, should never be left to the generals alone. Television, similarly, is too pervasive an influence to be left to the judgment of the industry itself. A year after Mumbai, the need for a genuinely impartial authority to balance the content and regulatory oversight that Indian broadcasting desperately needs is being felt even more. 

    (Nalin Mehta is the author of India on Television and a founding editor of the Routledge journal South Asian History and Culture)

  • Why the content king needs wise counsel

    Why the content king needs wise counsel

    As we mark the anniversary of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai on 26th November 2008 and the subsequent 60-hours of hostage-taking horror, with murders, mayhem and ensuing chaos unfolding live on national television, it is worth reflecting whether a more regulated news media might have shortened the misery and helped the security mission.

    There was much criticism of the way television networks covered the atrocity as a tacky round-the-clock Bollywood thriller – except that it was for real, claiming nearly 170 lives and many more injuries. Competing news networks vied with each other to provide the most sensational and dramatic reportage from India’s commercial capital. News footage such as live pictures of National Security Guard commandos being airdropped near the Nariman House, seemed highly irresponsible, potentially endangering both hostages and security forces.

    In a report just weeks after 26/11, a parliamentary panel called for greater regulation of real-time broadcasts during such emergencies, claiming that ‘the live footage shown by television channels was free intelligence for those allegedly guiding the attackers from afar through satellite/mobile phones‘. The government proposed 19 new amendments to the Cable TV Networks (Regulation) Act, including the suggestions that in the future there should be ‘delayed carriage of live feed‘ in such emergency situations.

    Partly in response, the News Broadcasters Association – a leading professional body of news organizations – set up a self-regulatory ‘emergency protocol‘ for covering terrorism. However, it is likely that commercial imperatives will still dictate what gets on air. In an excessively market-driven broadcasting ecology, the drive to be first with ‘breaking‘ news can lead journalists and news managers to compromise on content. There are numerous instances of this: one prime example is how television news has invented the sting story – sometimes slanderous, sometimes even fake. How should such content be regulated and by whom? What can we learn from other democracies?

    Until very recently, broadcasting content was tightly monitored within the European Union. Steeped in the tradition of public service, broadcasting was managed by governments as well as by self-monitoring by internal institutions within the broadcasters themselves. With the opening up of the airwaves to commercial – especially satellite and cable and later digital – broadcasting, this system has been considerably undermined by the forces of the market. As digitalization and technological convergence became a reality, it became difficult, if not impossible, to regulate content and as a result authorities opted for ‘soft touch regulation,‘ letting industry regulate itself in the public interest, while retaining control on broad policy outlines, as well as through judicial review.

    One reason that such an arrangement seems to generally work is that the regulators – such as Office of Communication (Ofcom) in Britain – are, and more importantly, are perceived to be, autonomous from government control, and therefore carry greater credibility both within the industry as well as among the general public. The content of such broadcasters as the BBC is also monitored by its Board of Governors and as a public broadcaster, it is also under parliamentary scrutiny, for periodic approval of the licence fee.

    What is more, the public have a greater say in terms of feedback on programme content – particularly on the public service television, unlike the commercial sector which is more often than not hostage to advertisers.

    Though the ratings-driven commercial model remains the dominant one in the United States and while the First Amendment ensures a high degree of independence to the media, the Federal Communications Commission requires broadcasters to follow certain restrictions in relations to content such as what is deemed as ‘harmful to minors‘.

    Though television in India was established in the European public broadcasting tradition, it has continued to veer towards a commercial model where Content is the King. As the world‘s largest and its most vibrant democracy, the notion of a free flow of information and freedom of expression is deeply entrenched in India. However, freedom of information and expression should come with a high dose of social responsibility, particularly relevant in a nation where more than 400 million people remain illiterate – despite huge progress in many areas including unprecedented growth in broadcasting industry – making India a country with the largest number of dedicated news channels (soon to touch three figures).

    As the Guidelines for Broadcast Regulations suggested by UNESCO state, the freedom of speech is ‘subject to such conditions and restrictions as are prescribed by law and necessary in a democratic society. The exclusions cover: the prevention of disorder or crime, the protection of health or morals, the protection of the reputation and rights of others (including the right to privacy), preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, and maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.‘

    For a balanced dynamic to emerge between the freedom to report and social responsibility, there is a pressing need for an autonomous national regulator. The Indian government has been toying with such an idea for nearly two decades now and, despite promises, nothing concrete has been done. In the absence of a professional and credible content regulator, competitive commercial interests have pushed the envelope further and further in the process of creating television empires, while debasing public discourse. As we remember those who lost their lives on 26/11, it is high time that the king of content had some wise counsel.

    (Daya Thussu is Professor of International Communication and the Co-Director of the soon to be launched India Media Centre at the University of Westminster in London. Among his key recent publications are Internationalizing Media Studies (Routledge) and News as Entertainment: The Rise of Global Infotainment (Sage). He is founder and Managing Editor of the journal Global Media and Communication.)

    (Disclaimer: The views expressed here are those of the author and Indiantelevision.com need not necessarily subscribe to the same)

  • Obama gives public broadcasting higher rating than Bush

    MUMBAI: Public broadcasting is finding greater support from the Obama administration than it did under former President George Bush.

    PBS chief Paula Kerger said the Corporation for Public Broadcasting‘s $430 million budget for this year has been left untouched by President Barack Obama, an approach contradictory to Bush administration’s repeated bids to reduce or eliminate the federal subsidy. PBS hopes to receive a further increase to $450 million next year.

    PBS has been hit hard by the economic downturn and recently downsized by 10 per cent “We are trying to be quite realistic about the resources we have available,” Kerger said, adding that the network wants to pay for and offer only “extraordinary content.”

    Clearly, Kerger finds Obama more inclined to public broadcasting than Bush. “I guess the best way to answer that question is that coming out of the administration, we received full funding for public broadcasting, which is the first time in eight years,” Kerger said. “So I think that says something.”

    According to the annual Roper poll, Americans rank public broadcasting as the second most important use of funds after defence.

    PBS is planning three religious documentaries for next year. This includes God in America, The Buddha and The Calling.

    “For many Americans, exploring religion and faith is one of life’s biggest and most central questions, and PBS offers some of the most compelling, wide-ranging programming on this subject anywhere on television,” said PBS chief programming executive John Wilson.

    God in America is a six-hour series for fall that examines 500 years of American religious history from the voyage of Christopher Columbus to the 2008 presidential election.

    The Buddha, a two-hour documentary from Emmy winner David Grubin slated for spring, tells the story of the enlightened Indian sage and tracks his biography aided by paintings and sculptures.

    The Calling, from independent producer Danny Alpert, is a four-hour documentary following eight people on their journey into the clergy of different faiths — Islam, Catholicism, Evangelical Christianity and Judaism.

  • Campaigning against terror

    Indian news television channels have been lambasted by one and all for their over-the-top telecast of the terrorist strike late last month. While some of the caning has been well-deserved, one can‘t forget that the news crews and authorities probably lacked the experience to understand and implement the sensitivity required for the live coverage of such a high intensity event as the recent Mumbai terror attacks. And hence, as a consequence, both the parties have been taking steps to correct those flaws by announcing the formation of a code and a committee which will become active during the reportage of national crises.

     

    One month down the line from the terror attacks, indiantelevision.com decided to take a look at what else Indian news media have been doing post 26/11, more specifically in terms of campaigns to create awareness about terrorism and to find solutions to some of the key issues which could prevent India from facing a similar situation in future.

     

    * NDTV Profit launched a campaign to try and find answers to terror-based issues like security, intelligence, infrastructure, corporate activism and crisis management from the corporate world of India. As part of this campaign, the channel hosted a daily special called Ideas for change at 10:30 pm every day.

     

    Speaking to indiantelevision.com, NDTV Profit managing editor Shivnath Thukral said, “The threat to India is intensifying and the recent attack on Mumbai has shaken each and every citizen of the country. Nevertheless, this is the time for people to come together and find solutions to our problems. Through this campaign we wanted CEOs to use their experience in drafting a blueprint which will help us all to contain this terror. We required ideas from the corporates who till this time have helped in building the shares of their stakeholders and expanding the Indian industry; to provide solutions to issues that would help in safeguarding our country from terrorism.”

     

    NDTV Profit wishes to continue the campaign in the future in some form or another and address various other issues. Additionally, by the end of December, 2008 the channel will present the documented ideas to the Home Minister, P. Chidambaram and the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Ashok Chavan.

     

    * Newspaper daily Daily News & Analysis (DNA) launched its own initiative called ‘Eyes & Ears – People Protection Group‘ with the catch phrase, ‘somebody needs to protect this city, let‘s start with you‘.

     

    “We plan to continue this campaign forever and for that DNA has also launched the website, eyesandears.in. The idea behind the campaign is to encourage people to report anything suspicious in their surroundings to DNA. To follow up on a complaint, DNA will interact with the concerned security authorities for further investigation. Generally people are scared to approach the police. Therefore, through this campaign we are trying to provide a channel through which the common people can communicate easily without any fear or difficulty,” elaborated DNA CEO K.U. Rao.

     

    * Network18‘s English news channel CNN-IBN in association with Hindustan Times group launched their own agenda against terrorism called, ‘Citizens against terror’.

     

    CNN-IBN executive editor Vinay Tewari noted, “Through this campaign with Hindustan Times, CNN-IBN is looking at addressing the burning issue the country faces after the terror attack in Mumbai. The campaign is an attempt to mobilise and help the people with various steps and initiatives they can take to contribute to this fight. We are inviting people to provide solutions to key issues via emails, blogs, messages etc. We then plan to create a handbook after selecting some of the best ideas which we will present to Home Minister P. Chidambaram and Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan on 26 December, exactly a month after the attacks. In order to choose the best of the ideas we have set up an expert panel.”

     

    While both CNN-IBN and IBN7 are hosting shows on the terror attack on weekends, daily newspapers of HT Media- Hindustan Times and Hindustan- are carrying stories of people who have suffered during the attack.

     

    * Aajtak, the Hindi news channel, has also launched ‘Declare War on Terror‘. The mission of this movement is to bring all Indians together to fight and counter terrorism in all forms. The movement will develop programmes and will partner in areas such as empowering public opinion against all forms of terrorism. It will influence decision makers at the highest level – fighting against those who kill innocents, support measures that ensure safety, expose corruption and incompetence that endangered safety and security, defeat the enemy by having zero tolerance of terror, eliminate forces that propagate hate and promote unity among the people of India.

     

    * Mumbai-based daily tabloid Mid-Day not only used print but has further extended its campaign against terrorism on its radio station, Radio One 94.3 FM.

     

    Mid-Day group editorial director Shishir Joshi elucidates, “We launched our campaign ‘Enough‘ across our platforms which include daily papers like Mid-Day, Gujarati Mid-Day and Inquilab, radio station Radio One, Mid-day.com and also through the mobile short code 53650. Through our campaign we asked four basic questions to the government – ‘Did we have prior information about the attack?’, ‘What did we do after we had the information?’, ‘what could have been a better way of handling the situation then?’ and ‘what are the measures that should be adopted now to improve the situation?’. We took the answers from the representative of the government to the common people and then took their feedback on these answers to the government once again.”

     

    * The radio stations in Mumbai went an extra mile in serving as an interactive platform for listeners to express their anguish about 26/11. Red FM launched its campaign ‘Enough is enough‘ in which the airwaves were thrown open to Mumbaikars and the music on-air was reduced to accommodate the flood of calls from people. The callers included victims, families of victims, eye witnesses, staff members of the hotels and everybody else who wanted to speak about their experiences, send out a plea, express anger or demand answers for their unanswered questions.

    Mumbai station of ADAG owned Big 92.7 FM undertook a special drive to urge each and every Mumbaikar to join them and speak up against Terrorism. ‘Mumbai Halla Bol- Ab Chup Rehene ka Waqt Nahi‘ saw people from all walks of life including celebrities like Rahul Mahajan, Ad Film maker Prahlad Kakar, Singers Shaan and Ismail Darbar, Tops Security chief director Ramesh Iyer, Dr Mangeshkar who was one of the hostages at the Taj Hotel, professionals from various companies, College students, and the NGO Dreamz Home joining the initiative.

     

    Commenting on Big FM‘s role on the issue, station head Neerja Dhillon said, “Radio as a medium today can not only inform people, but it can activate a complete movement in the city by not only creating awareness, but by creating a feeling of responsibility. Hence, Big 92.7 FM took up this drive to bring together people from various backgrounds.”

     

    Additionally, ENIL‘s Radio Mirchi 98.3 FM initiated a 15 day campaign ‘Be alert but don‘t be prejudiced.‘ The campaign was an appeal to all to practice communal peace and tolerance rather than blindly blaming a particular caste or religion for the cause. The campaign also aired opinions and views of Muslims who lead normal, regular lives.

  • Lessons from the terror front

    Lessons from the terror front

    It’s the festival of lights. And for many the festival of noise courtesy exploding fireworks. In the hope of reducing the number of those belonging to the latter tribe, we, at indiantelevision.com, decided to put a display of firecracker articles for visitors this Diwali. We have had many top journalists reporting, analysing, over the many years of indiantelevision.com’s existence. The articles we are presenting are representative of some of the best writing on the business of cable and satellite television and media for which we have gained renown. Read on to get a flavour and taste of indiantelevision.com over the years from some of its finest writers. And have a Happy and Safe Diwali!

     

    Written By Anil Wanvari

     
     Posted on : 29 Nov 2008 01:02 pm

    They came to terrify. And in many ways they have succeeded, if, only, for a while. The memories of a gun- and grenade-toting killer army, spraying hundreds of innocents with bullets, lobbing grenades at will, will probably never leave us. Thanks to news television.

    I believe that the efforts of the army, the commandos, the NSG and the police to flush out the Taj Hotel, the Trident/Oberoi Hotels, and Nariman House offered to TV viewers images that will also stay embedded for a long, long time. Mumbaikars, nay Indians, were concerned, and in some cases affected by the terrorist strike, and wanted to know what is happening to those caught up in the mayhem.

    News channels offered them updates, took them to the scene of the dastardly acts. And they also exposed the government‘s, the administration‘s, the army‘s, the police‘s and their own lack of preparedness to handle the crises.

    India is a complex country. We have scores of news channels, probably more than any other nation in the world. Hence, our country requires unique treatment.

    While reporters on the field of all the channels need to be lauded for staying on for hours together, reporting on developments even as shrapnel was streaking around and bombs were exploding, the key issue is could the coverage of the carnage have been managed better? And the answer is yes. The fault does not lie solely with the news channels. The fault lies with systemic failure and understanding of crisis media management by the folks who took up the rescue act, whether it is the government or the administration or the commandos or the police or the media which reported on it.

    The lack of planning showed. Did anyone have a strategy – how to combat the terrorists or how to handle and manage media? It was alarming to see that no press briefing room was set up by the government or the administration or the police or the army and sound bytes were given by senior army officials and police out in the open. No protection was provided to either. Stray bullets, exploding window panes and shrapnel could have hit any one of them.

    TV cameramen followed almost every move that the commandos made. News editors carried those images, but could they have been done so in a delayed manner, say with a 5-10 minute time lag right from day one so that terrorists may have not been able to keep a tab on what was being planned as has been alleged?

    Could the reporters have asked more pertinent questions? Is there enough training being given to them on how to cover crises such as war or terror attacks? Most news stations internationally have war correspondents, who know how to handle themselves in demanding environments.

    Could there have been more analysis – with crisis and terror management experts being brought in – from reputed studio anchors rather than playing the blame game with celebs who spouted venom against the system? Could they instead have offered solutions?

    Indeed. News channels have been hard pressed for experienced journalistic talent, and hence have been putting relatively inexperienced journos on the field to handle tough situations. That is permissible if enough training is given to them.

    A lot more homework could have been done by the news channels, an understanding provided of similar terrorists attacks the world over, and how they were handled. In the process, they could have eased the panic and sense of hopelessness that they instilled in viewers and all of us.

    The news channels behaved like little boys in a school race all wanting to come first. Each one of them wanted to flash that exclusive. And that sometimes came in the form of canards, wild flights of imagination being flashed as insights and breaking news. Some of the Hindi channels really led in this with a sensationalist tone.

    Not that the English channels were far behind. The itch to be seen as the leader forced one of the leading English anchors to voice again and again that they heard the breaking news first on his channel. It was as insensitive as you can get when almost the entire nation was quavering with fear and anger.

    Clearly, a code of ethics and policies need to be put in place. Because going by the lack of focus of the government on anti-terrorism measures, a terrorist strike in another city may not be too far away. We are living in dangerous times. Hopefully, we will not see a repeat of the media management exercise we witnessed in Mumbai.

    The news channels would do well to live up to their raison d‘etre well, that is, to inform, analyse, and investigate. Even if the government and administration are not doing their jobs well enough.

     

    (Anil Wanvari is CEO and editor-in-chief of Indiantelevision Dot Com. He wrote this comment piece following the terrorist attacks on the Taj Mahal Hotel, The Oberoi Hotel in 2008 in Mumbai)

  • No entry for states, political parties, religious bodies into broadcasting: Trai

    NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India today ruled out the entry of political parties into broadcasting, and also said religious bodies may not be permitted to own their own broadcasting stations and teleports.

    Similarly, state governments, urban and rural local bodies etc should not be allowed entry into broadcasting, noting that their interests can be adequately met by Prasar Bharati by imposing certain public service broadcasting obligations on private broadcasters. Trai has also recommended that the state governments and their organs should stay away from distribution activities.

    Trai also said certain public service broadcasting obligations be imposed on broadcasters in the country. The preparation of content for public service broadcasting may be done by individuals including private broadcasters, NGOs, social action groups, in addition to Prasar Bharati, DAVP, state governments and their organs.

    The Central Government (Ministry of Information and Broadcasting) may set up a regular body to approve and certify programmes as being fit for broadcast as part of the public service broadcasting obligation.

    To begin with, every private broadcaster may be mandated to carry such approved programmes at least for a total duration of 30 minutes in a week.

    Trai took this decision after considering the relevant Constitutional provisions, the Constituent Assembly debates, the recommendations of the Sarkaria Commission and the judgments of the Supreme Court, and feedback received from the stakeholders.

    These recommendations have been made by Trai in its report on “Issues relating to entry of certain entities into Broadcasting and Distribution activities”. It said in order to provide funds for such public service broadcasting programmes, a Fund known as the Public Service Broadcasting Obligation Fund should be established on lines similar to the Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund in the telecom sector, and by imposing an annual Public Service Broadcasting Obligation levy on the private broadcasters in the country and a predetermined share from the percentage of gross revenue being paid by the identified stakeholders in the broadcasting sector.

    With reference to political parties, Trai said broadcasting channels provide “reasonable access” to recognized political parties during the run up to elections to Parliament and to the State Legislative Assemblies.

    The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting may seek the guidance of the Election Commission and may frame appropriate guidelines in this regard, having regard to the importance of the free flow of information to the public during the electoral process.

    In case permission has earlier been granted to any religious body for a television channel, provisions should be made for “an appropriate exit route within a time limit of three to four years to such religious bodies.”

    Denial of entry to religious bodies would be in conformity with the secular fabric of the Constitution. Trai has recommended that the disqualifications as contained in the relevant provisions of the Broadcasting Bill 1997 (which could not be enacted into law) regarding disqualification of religious bodies may be incorporated in the proposed new legislation on broadcasting.

    However, such disqualification should not be construed to mean that religious contents in the broadcasting channels is to be disallowed. Such religious content should be in conformity with the appropriate content code or programme code as prescribed from time to time by the government.

    The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting had requested Trai, by its reference dated 27 December, 2007, to examine the matter of allowing certain entities including State Governments, urban and local bodies, 3-tier Panchayati Raj bodies, publicly funded bodies, political bodies and religious bodies to enter into broadcasting activities which may include starting of broadcast channels or entering into distribution platforms such as cable services and DTH.

    Trai released a Consultation Paper on 25 February 2008 on the issues arising out of the reference. The Consultation Paper covered issues as to whether it would be in the interest of the broadcasting sector and in the interest of the public at large to permit the Union government and its organs, the state governments and their organs, urban and rural local bodies, political bodies, religious bodies etc. to enter into broadcasting and distribution activities like cable TV and DTH. The consultation paper also raised the issue whether permitting the state governments and their enterprises to enter into broadcasting sector would have impact on the Centre-State Relationship and the inter-se relationship among the states.

    This was followed by an Open House Discussion (OHD) held in New Delhi on 16 April 2008. The Authority has, after carefully examining several Constitutional and legal issues arising out of the reference and after carefully considering the views of stake-holders and the prevailing international practices, arrived at these final recommendations.

    As far as entry of state governments into distribution platforms such as cable TV, DTH, etc. is concerned, the Authority says the country already has six DTH operators, about 6000 multi-system operators, and nearly 60,000 cable operators. In the interest of fair competition and a level playing field, and considering the need to ensure proper enforcement mechanism equally applicable to all the players in the field, suitable provisions for exit route within three to four years have been provided wherever state governments and their organs have entered such distribution activity.

    For similar reasons and the need to prevent misuse of distribution platforms by any of the players on political or other considerations and also the need to prevent any problems relating to enforcement measures against the service providers involved, Trai has recommended that urban and local bodies, political bodies, religious bodies and other publicly funded bodies may not be permitted into distribution activities like cable television and DTH.

  • Broadcasting is going through a period of change: BBC Trust chairman Lyons

    Broadcasting is going through a period of change: BBC Trust chairman Lyons

    MUMBAI: The media industries in general, and broadcasting in particular, are going through an extraordinary period of change where the EU regulatory framework has served audiences well. But this is a timely moment to ask whether it remains appropriate for the new world of digital convergence and on-demand services, into which everyone is moving at an extreme speed.

    This point was rasied by BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons at the EU conference in Strasbourg. He emphasized upon the fact that the BBC is more than simply a broadcaster.

    “It is expected to fulfil public purposes that go well beyond the provision of high quality television and radio programmes and online content,” Lyons said.

    “These public purposes are set out in some detail in the new BBC Charter, in effect its constitution, which was put in place 18 months ago. The public purposes range from sustaining citizenship and civil society, through promoting education and learning and stimulating creativity and cultural excellence, to representing the UK, its nations, regions and communities, and bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK. The BBC is also tasked with delivering to audiences the benefits of emerging communications, technologies and services,” he added.

    Lyons explained that the BBC can only deliver these high public purposes if it remains independent.

    “The public purpose of ‘sustaining citizenship’, for example, implies the provision of high quality impartial coverage of news and current affairs. This is the essential fuel of an informed democracy; and impartiality in news provision cannot be sustained without full editorial independence. The independence of the BBC is guaranteed by the Charter and this includes independence from government. Of course government has a role, but that role is closely defined. It is to set the Charter (there is a new Charter every 10 years or so) and to set the formula that defines the licence fee for the Charter period,” elaborated Lyons.

    However, Lyons believes that oversight of the BBC is carried out not by government, or by Parliament, but by the BBC Trust and hence one of the key roles of the Trust would be to defend the independence of the BBC from undue pressure from any quarter.

    In terms of the things that the BBC Trust has been doing, he said that it had challenged the BBC executive to do much more to ensure that BBC responds appropriately to the needs of all audiences in the UK. “We have supported plans to move very significant amounts of production and control of airtime out of London. Our aim is that by the end of the Charter period in 2016 around 50 per cent of BBC production should take place outside London.”

    “We have also prompted the Executive to make significant changes in BBC journalism to ensure that our news gives a truer and more accurate picture of life throughout the UK, and fully reflects the fact that powers have been devolved from Westminster to new legislative bodies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Taken together, these changes are taking the BBC in a new direction – a direction set by its audiences, and mediated by the Trust as the representative of those audiences,” Lyon stated.

    He added that a similar journey had begun in regard to the relationship between the BBC and other organisations active in the UK media market. He also conceded that this relationship would never be a completely easy one.

    This is because there will always be areas of direct competition between what the BBC provides and what the market supplies. Convergence and market changes are bringing new areas of competition as both public and private providers seek to make the most of the opportunities created by the digital revolution.

    “On this general issue, our fundamental position as trustees, representing the interest of audiences, is this: audiences clearly like wide choice in their media diet and deserve to get the benefits of competition and innovation, so the BBC must not use its market power in a way that restricts audience choice; and we have the power to ensure this happens… the power to approve new BBC services used to lie with government. But under the new charter, it rests with us. This is a significant strengthening of the independence of the BBC.”

  • Is Bollywood taking over TV news?

    Is Bollywood taking over TV news?

     As the world’s largest television news bazaar – with over 40 dedicated news channels, unrivalled by any other country – India offers exciting possibilities for broadcast journalism. At the same time, just as elsewhere in the world, television news in India shows a clear trend towards infotainment – soft news, lifestyle and celebrities – and a decline in journalism for the public interest.

    While news outlets have proliferated globally, the growing competition for audiences and, crucially, advertising revenue, has intensified at a time when interest in news is waning. Audiences for network television peak-time news bulletins have declined in the US from 85 per cent in1969 to 29 per cent in 2005 (though in India news audience has grown).

    With the growing commercialisation of television news, the need to make it entertaining has therefore become a priority for broadcasters. They borrow and adapt ideas from entertainment and adopt an informal style with an emphasis on personalities, storytelling and spectacle.


    This has been reinforced by the take-over of news networks by huge media corporations whose primary interest is in the entertainment business: Viacom-Paramount (CBS News); Disney (ABC News); AOL-Time-Warner (CNN) and News Corporation (Fox News/Sky News and Star News Asia). This shift in ownership is reflected in the type of stories – about celebrities from the world of entertainment, for example – that get prominence on news, thus strengthening corporate synergies.

    In the process, symbiotic relationships between the news and new forms of current affairs and factual entertainment genres, such as reality TV have developed, blurring the boundaries between news, documentary and entertainment. Such hybrid programming feeds into and benefits from the 24/7 news cycle: providing a feast of visually arresting, emotionally charged infotainment which sustains ratings and keeps production costs low. The growing global popularity of such infotainment-driven programming indicates the success of this formula.

    Infotainment – a term that emerged in the late 1980s to become a buzzword – refers to an explicit genre-mix of ‘information’ and ‘entertainment’ in news and current affairs programming. This new news cannibalises visual forms and styles borrowed from TV commercials and a MTV-style visual aesthetics, including fast-paced action, in a post-modern studio, computer-animated logos, eye-catching visuals and rhetorical headlines from an, often glamorous, anchor person. This style of presentation, with its origins in the ratings-driven commercial television news culture of the US, is becoming increasingly global, as news channels attempt to reach more viewers and keep their target audiences from switching over.

    As I demonstrate in my new book News as Entertainment: The Rise of Global Infotainment, such type of journalism has been very successful: in Italy, infotainment-driven private television catapulted Silvio Berlusconi from a businessman to the office of the Prime Minister. A study of journalism in post-Soviet Russia found that the media were ‘paying huge attention to the entertainment genre’, while in the Chinese news world, Phoenix channel regularly runs such soft news programmes as ‘Easy Time, Easy News.’

    In the world’s largest democracy, what I have described as – the three Cs – cinema, crime and cricket – encapsulate most of the content on television news. Here global influences are important: As in many other countries, the greatest contributor to infotainment in India has been Rupert Murdoch, whose pan-Asian network Star, launched in 1991, pioneered satellite television in Asia, transforming TV news and entertainment. Murdoch was responsible, among other things, for introducing the first music channel in India (Channel V); the first 24/7 news network (Star News) and the first adaptation of an international game show (Who Wants to be a Millionaire).

    Murdoch was also the first transnational operator to recognise the selling power of Bollywood, its glamour and glitz. The obsession of almost all news channels with Bollywood-centred celebrity culture today dominates coverage. Crime is big too: as the ratings battle has intensified, news networks have moved towards reporting sensational stories, which are becoming progressively gruesome: murder, gore and rape are recurring themes. The paradox is stark: although crime coverage has spiralled, especially on more populist Hindi channels, in the real India the crime rate has in fact fallen dramatically in the last decade.

    A third obsession is to be seen in the coverage of cricket: cricket-related stories appear almost daily on all networks – and not just on sports news. And as Bollywood stars start bidding for cricketers, the ‘Bollywoodisation‘ of news is likely to continue.

    These three Cs are indicative of a television news culture that is increasingly becoming hostage to infotainment. The lack of coverage of rural India, of regular suicides by peasants (more than 170,000, in the last 15 years, according to government figures), and the negligible reporting of health and hygiene, educational and employment equality (India has the world’s largest population of child labour at the same time as having vast pool of unemployed young people), demonstrates that such stories do not translate into ratings for urban, Westernized viewers and are displaced by the diversion of infotainment.

    The lack of concern among television news networks for India’s majority population is ironic in a country that was the first in the world to use satellite television for educational and developmental purposes, through its 1975 SITE (Satellite Instructional Television Experiment) programme. The interest in broader questions of global equality and social justice appear to have been replaced among many journalists by an admiration for charismatic and smooth-talking CEOs and American or Americanized celebrities.

    Should we worry about this perceived dilution and debasing of news? In the early 1980s, years before media globalization and rampant commercialization of the airwaves, Neil Postman, in his influential book Amusing Ourselves to Death, argued that television militated against deeper knowledge and understanding since it promoted ‘incoherence and triviality,’ and spoke in only one persistent voice – ‘the voice of entertainment.’

    A quarter century later, looking at the Bollywoodization of news in India, Postman’s words ring truer than ever.

    (Daya Kishan Thussu is Professor of International Communication at the University of Westminster in London. His latest book is News as Entertainment: The Rise of Global Infotainment – the first book-length study of this phenomenon, published by Sage.)