ITV

Tag: DAS

  • DAS: Total number of provisional MSO licence holders rises to 596, taking total to over 825

    DAS: Total number of provisional MSO licence holders rises to 596, taking total to over 825

    NEW DELHI: 22 April: Even as the digital addressable system comes under a cloud with cases of extension getting transferred to Delhi High Court, the government has cleared 35 multi system operators for provisional licences in the first twenty days of this month and took the total to 827 including 231 which have ten-year licences.

    The last list issued as on 31 March had put the total at 792 including the 231 which have permanent (ten-year) licences.

    The Information and Broadcasting had by 12 January cancelled the licences of 26 MSOs and closed their cases.

    According to the list issued today but dated till 21 April, the areas of operation of two MSOs have been revised or amended in the past three weeks.

    Unlike the last list, two of the MSOs have got pan-India licences while the others are for specific states or districts in respective states. The new registrations are from Himachal Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Tripura, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Odisha, Chhatisgarh, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh.

    With the Home Ministry directive about doing away with security clearances for MSOs not being communicated in writing to the MIB, the pace remains slow.

    The permanent licence issued to Kal Cable of Chennai had been cancelled on 20 August, 2014 but this cancellation was set aside by Madras High Court on 5 September the same year. However, Kal Cable’s name continues to be in the cancelled list – presumably because the cases are still pending. 

    Sources denied that denial of security clearance was the reason for provisional licences and said many MSOs holding provisional licences had not completed certain formalities relating to shareholders and so on.

     

  • DAS: Total number of provisional MSO licence holders rises to 596, taking total to over 825

    DAS: Total number of provisional MSO licence holders rises to 596, taking total to over 825

    NEW DELHI: 22 April: Even as the digital addressable system comes under a cloud with cases of extension getting transferred to Delhi High Court, the government has cleared 35 multi system operators for provisional licences in the first twenty days of this month and took the total to 827 including 231 which have ten-year licences.

    The last list issued as on 31 March had put the total at 792 including the 231 which have permanent (ten-year) licences.

    The Information and Broadcasting had by 12 January cancelled the licences of 26 MSOs and closed their cases.

    According to the list issued today but dated till 21 April, the areas of operation of two MSOs have been revised or amended in the past three weeks.

    Unlike the last list, two of the MSOs have got pan-India licences while the others are for specific states or districts in respective states. The new registrations are from Himachal Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Tripura, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Odisha, Chhatisgarh, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh.

    With the Home Ministry directive about doing away with security clearances for MSOs not being communicated in writing to the MIB, the pace remains slow.

    The permanent licence issued to Kal Cable of Chennai had been cancelled on 20 August, 2014 but this cancellation was set aside by Madras High Court on 5 September the same year. However, Kal Cable’s name continues to be in the cancelled list – presumably because the cases are still pending. 

    Sources denied that denial of security clearance was the reason for provisional licences and said many MSOs holding provisional licences had not completed certain formalities relating to shareholders and so on.

     

  • HCs’ informed about SC decision to transfer all DAS cases to Delhi HC

    HCs’ informed about SC decision to transfer all DAS cases to Delhi HC

    NEW DELHI: The registry of the Supreme Court has finally sent to all the concerned high courts the directive of the apex court for transfer of all cases seeking extension to digital addressable system for cable television to Delhi High Court with a view to avoid conflicting decisions’.

    Court registry officials told indiantelevision.com that the order of the apex court of early this month had been sent on 16 April. A copy of the order was also sent to the Delhi High Court and it was now up to that court to fix a date.

    The officials said that the attempt would be to first receive from the various high courts the papers relating to the petitions, which almost all had pleaded shortage of set top boxes for seeking extension or stay of DAS which became effective 1 January 2016.

    Earlier, the apex court had accepted the plea of the central government that ‘it would be justand proper for this court to withdraw all those cases pending in different high courtsand transfer the same to Delhi High Court.’

    In its order of 1 April, justices V Gopala Gowda and Arjun Mishra had said on the transfer petition filed by the central government that ‘in future, if any case on the same legalquestion is filed before the high court(s), such case(s) shall also be transferred to theDelhi High Court’.

    The Supreme Court registry was directed to communicate the order tothe registrar general(s) of the respective high courts for transmitting the records of thecases pending before the respective high courts to Delhi High Court.

    The order took on record the fact that the All Sikkim Cable Operators Association
    had withdrawn from the High Court of Sikkim. The court also noted that one petitioner, JBM Cable Network, had refused to accept notice but this service would be considered sufficient. Ironically, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry had on 12 January written to its counsel in Punjab and Haryana High Court that it had understood the Hyderabad order to mean a pan India stay while asking him to defend the case.

    Buit later, the ministry sources admitted to indiantelevision.com that there was a misreading of the Bombay High Court directive. The Court had merely refereed to the Kusum Ingots & Alloys Ltd vs the Union of India 2004 case to say that if one high court gives a stay, another high court can act in similar fashion if the facts are similar – in this case, shortage of STBs. Thus, they agree that the high court stay was only confined to Maharashtra and not pan-India.

    Earlier, the Indian Broadcasting Foundation had withdrawn its petition after the Supreme Court said that the order of the Bombay High Court did not imply any pan-India stay.

    Meanwhile, cases are pending in the high courts of Bombay, Hyderabad (with separate petitions for Telengana and Andhra Pradesh), Allahabad, Assam, Odisha, and Chhattisgarh for the entire states, apart from Tamil Nadu where prolonged legal cases have been pending since Phase I.
    In Karnataka, three individual stakeholders have got stay orders in Mangalore and Mysore areas while there is no state-wide stay.

    The Bombay High Court had referred in its order to the argument by counsel that the Supreme Court in the Kusum Ingot case had said that if similar circumstances persist in other states, then they can pass an order similar to one passed by an earlier court.

  • HCs’ informed about SC decision to transfer all DAS cases to Delhi HC

    HCs’ informed about SC decision to transfer all DAS cases to Delhi HC

    NEW DELHI: The registry of the Supreme Court has finally sent to all the concerned high courts the directive of the apex court for transfer of all cases seeking extension to digital addressable system for cable television to Delhi High Court with a view to avoid conflicting decisions’.

    Court registry officials told indiantelevision.com that the order of the apex court of early this month had been sent on 16 April. A copy of the order was also sent to the Delhi High Court and it was now up to that court to fix a date.

    The officials said that the attempt would be to first receive from the various high courts the papers relating to the petitions, which almost all had pleaded shortage of set top boxes for seeking extension or stay of DAS which became effective 1 January 2016.

    Earlier, the apex court had accepted the plea of the central government that ‘it would be justand proper for this court to withdraw all those cases pending in different high courtsand transfer the same to Delhi High Court.’

    In its order of 1 April, justices V Gopala Gowda and Arjun Mishra had said on the transfer petition filed by the central government that ‘in future, if any case on the same legalquestion is filed before the high court(s), such case(s) shall also be transferred to theDelhi High Court’.

    The Supreme Court registry was directed to communicate the order tothe registrar general(s) of the respective high courts for transmitting the records of thecases pending before the respective high courts to Delhi High Court.

    The order took on record the fact that the All Sikkim Cable Operators Association
    had withdrawn from the High Court of Sikkim. The court also noted that one petitioner, JBM Cable Network, had refused to accept notice but this service would be considered sufficient. Ironically, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry had on 12 January written to its counsel in Punjab and Haryana High Court that it had understood the Hyderabad order to mean a pan India stay while asking him to defend the case.

    Buit later, the ministry sources admitted to indiantelevision.com that there was a misreading of the Bombay High Court directive. The Court had merely refereed to the Kusum Ingots & Alloys Ltd vs the Union of India 2004 case to say that if one high court gives a stay, another high court can act in similar fashion if the facts are similar – in this case, shortage of STBs. Thus, they agree that the high court stay was only confined to Maharashtra and not pan-India.

    Earlier, the Indian Broadcasting Foundation had withdrawn its petition after the Supreme Court said that the order of the Bombay High Court did not imply any pan-India stay.

    Meanwhile, cases are pending in the high courts of Bombay, Hyderabad (with separate petitions for Telengana and Andhra Pradesh), Allahabad, Assam, Odisha, and Chhattisgarh for the entire states, apart from Tamil Nadu where prolonged legal cases have been pending since Phase I.
    In Karnataka, three individual stakeholders have got stay orders in Mangalore and Mysore areas while there is no state-wide stay.

    The Bombay High Court had referred in its order to the argument by counsel that the Supreme Court in the Kusum Ingot case had said that if similar circumstances persist in other states, then they can pass an order similar to one passed by an earlier court.

  • “You will see us relooking at the entire IBN7 proposition in 3-4 months”: Avinash Kaul

    “You will see us relooking at the entire IBN7 proposition in 3-4 months”: Avinash Kaul

    MUMBAI: A visionary who has entered into the foray of vernacular journalism to make it recognised globally. He is a broadcast professional with a career spanning more than 17 years with an immense pool of knowledge in the large variety of roles in sales, marketing, finance, legal and general management.

    Geared up to provide a refreshing outlook to the channels under him, it is the chief executive officer at IBN News Network (CNN-IBN, IBN7, IBNLokmat) Avinash Kaul. He has worked across various genres including news, general entertainment, kids, movies and lifestyle in India. 

    From being a board member of the Media Research Users Council to a part of the technical committee for Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), he has witnessed every chapter of the broadcast industry. With many a feather in his cap, Kaul is now poised to take IBN Networks to newer heights with a prominent footprint in digital with the launch of various properties.

    In conversation with Indiantelevision.com’s Megha Parmar, Kaul sheds light on the revamps in the pipeline, importance of the ratings body, the tug of war between digital and linear television, DAS III roll out effects, and the way ahead for the entire IBN News Network. 

    Read on for excerpts:

    You are revamping CNN-IBN to CNN-News18 from 18th April onwards. What is the idea behind the change? 

    We are infusing a lot of energy and resources behind this relaunch. We have been in talks about this for 2 years and now we are finally ready. This is the first attempt of launching the entire channel. To give a sense of what we are looking at is that news channels over a decade or more have come under pressure. We are mainly focusing on two things – We are stationing more resources on-ground in terms of news gathering, making it far better to what we are terming as immersive journalism. 

    We are putting up a team of reporters who will go and cover in-depth all the multiple angles of each story and be far more immersive into every story that we pick. Reporters have always been the biggest strength of CNN-IBN as compared to all other networks. We are investing more and more into that strength which gives us far more ground presence not only in terms of the number of stories that we are able to collect but we will also follow the mantra of doing it efficiently. We will do justice to each story by putting the sources on ground to cover those stories very comprehensively. This will be a one of the major changes that will be a part of the revamp. 

    The second aspect is the way the discussion and debate space is shaping up. At present, the space has become purely slanging action. We have figured out how we can improve the quality of debates. The people who are in the panel and are discussing should be in order to what we are seeing across various other channels. We have got experts with Swapan Dasgupta, Vir Sanghvi, Ajay Bose, etc., to be our exclusive panellists and we will gradually add more as time passes by. 

    What other changes will we see in the channel? 

    There is a lot of emphasis in terms of change; there is a new news studio, new upgrade of all the back end technologies that we are using, etc. We had the opportunity of revamping and changing our product and making it ready for digital and we are trying to do it in the best way – from the workflow to how will we be available to cater to the digital ecosystem or the second screen. 

    From the people perspective, we have a team of anchors and reporters and we are looking at investing on them and building them over a period of years. Over time, you will also see us invest quite significantly over the weekends in addition to weekdays, something which has traditionally not been seen over a long time on news channels. We are looking at feature programming, some high quality content on weekends. In our new avatar we will be leveraging a lot more CNN content than earlier. A lot of CNN shows will be seen on CNN-News18 like the Fareed Zakharia show. We are also going to get trainers from CNN to our team in terms of news gathering, editorial staff, comprehensive training with the CNN experts.

    Will there be a change in terms of the editorial structure? Are you planning to strengthen the team with a more popular anchor?

    No, there is no significant change in the editorial structure. We now have people driving various aspects. We have hired Anuradha Sen Gupta and she will look after the entire news on weekends. We have Sudeep Mukhia who has joined us as editor for prime time specifically. We are putting more and more resources in each and every time band to improve our quality which you will not typically see in any other news channels where their resources are in short supply. We are looking at filling all those gaps. We have a different team of reporters, anchors, producers only focused on the primetime band. All of them will report to our managing editor Radhakrishnan Nair. The structure won’t change, but the emphasis on each and every aspect will be significantly better. 

    You already have an application for IBNLive. Will it also be revamped or will we see one more application being launched? 

    Yes. In its new avatar, IBNLive app will now be renamed as News18 and the website as News18.com. You will see a completely new layout and approach. We have this app which is going to get upgraded. We are trying to do everything one by one. What you will see on 18th is a completely new packaging for the channel, new music, logo, website, app, new prime-time, new faces, new formats, that’s what is going to happen. In a month’s time you will see a bigger upgrade, one which will be a radical shift from what we are doing now. It’s just a start. We will have lot more things coming in the next few months. Every month you will see some new launches unlike any other channel. 

    Is the logo designed internally or did you hire an agency? 

    It has been done in-house. 

    How do you plan to promote the re-branding? What is your marketing strategy?

    We have a lot of teasers and promos already on-air. Apart from that, you will see heavy promotions on social, network channels, outdoors, print, lot more trade activities, TV, radio, everything will be covered. Yes, there will be a significant focus on digital. 

    What are your plans for IBN7 and IBNLokmat? Will you revamp them? When will we see that happening? 

    We are currently working on CNN’s revamp. You will see us relooking at the entire IBN7 proposition in 3-4 months. That is also on the cards but we are looking at one thing at a time. 

    Is digital a revenue generating proposition for you at this stage or is it too early?

    It has started but it’s not really up there. The growth is picking up very significantly, which is good. We were among the first partners with Facebook when it started with videos. So we are also seeing monetisation having a good growth rate. A lot more interaction is happening and we are keeping a lot of content for such platforms. It’s not the same content that moves from television to digital. We will create separately new content for these platforms. 

    CNN-IBN is having a tough time when it comes to viewership. Are you revamping to change that?

    The revamping has to happen any which ways. It’s not a reflection of if we are going up or down. If you look at the data in the last two weeks, we were at the number 2 position. But that is not something which we looked at when it came to revamping. The work has been on since quite a few months and from that we are launching it all together. We had to get ready with all the pieces of editorial, packaging, etc., in place. It’s not reacting to any number that keeps changing from week to week. Yes, we will always be happy to be at the number one position, or if not that, at least securing ourselves at the second position.

    How important are ratings in the larger scheme of things for a news channel?

    It’s not about absolute weightage on numbers but it’s usually the relative position which holds some value. In the general scheme of things, the numbers are extremely small. It’s more to do with what’s your imagery and perception, what is the quality that you bring to the table. These are usually more important, especially in the case of English news channels. In the case of Hindi news, the ratings play a far more important role than just the imagery or good quality content.  

    Do you plan to strengthen your distribution?

    Of course we will strengthen distribution! We are launching our distribution footprint as well with this revamp. There are lot more activities that we are working on with rebranding and rebuilding a product. Distribution is a part of it.  

    What is the advertisers’ reaction to the revamp?

    The advertisers so far have been pretty enthusiastic about the entire thing. At the end of it, you are investing in a product today, not just for the first screen but also for the second screen. As I mentioned, we are doing so much not just for TV, but also for digital. All of these are opportunities that we now have. We are content for a news company and we deliver our content on both the screens depending where the people are and in what point of time. So if you are on your Facebook timeline, you will get to see news content there as well. It’s only a matter of time. You would see that once BARC starts rolling out digital data in 6-7 months from now, you will see all these efforts being fruitful. Soon you will realise that a lot more consumption will not happen on the first screen, but will happen on second screen from now onwards. 

    How is the advertising revenue shaping up? Is having only advertising a profitable proposition?  

    Advertising revenue keeps growing in phases, because at the end of the day, advertising revenue especially for an English news channel keeps increasing. Earlier, we had lot of banking financial institutions wherein a lot of advertising was happening. Then came in the wave of mobile operators and later came the wave of e-commerce companies. So there is something or other always happening in that particular phase. But until the economy revives fully, you will always see lot more stress coming in the business front. 

    On the other hand if you look at Hindi news, you will see lot more local advertisers, lot more FMCG products coming in, which typically you will not see on English news channels. Despite these transitions, you will have a great year. It’s a cyclical movement; until the general economy starts picking up, many of these things will continue to be ranged down in certain ways. The bulk of the growth that we are seeing today is happening on the entertainment space because no matter the economy, the FMCG space will continue to grow with a lot more advertising. 

    The reason for getting heavily into digital and second screens is one of the key reasons why we want to make sure that we are tapping into all forms of opportunities. It’s not only a question about advertising sales. We are trying to diversify as much as possible with multiple dimensions.

    Is digital gradually taking over the TV when it comes to news? What should the TV players be doing to keep the audience intact?

    No, so far digital has not taken over TV in the case of news. These are two types of media that we are talking about. One is the type of people that are already on the second screen but there are people who still have not bought a TV set. So, out of 240 odd million (24 crore) households in India, only 155 million (15.5 crore) have televisions. As a broadcaster, one cannot abandon one medium for the other. We will continue to do what we are doing on linear TV, and we will also look into investing into something which that is yet to explode, which is digital consumption. Currently, digital consumption is a small percentage of the overall base. It is TV which reaches out to 155 million (15.5 crore) households. Yes, there are 1 billion plus (100 crore) phones in the market, but only 15 per cent of these are smartphones. They cannot get a great quality of video content on them and replace linear TV. That is still few a years away. We are ready for whenever that happens.  

    What can we expect from you and your network? 

    You will see new enhanced high quality products for which we are trying to rope in the best global expertise to make a product of which all of us will be proud of. We will leave no stone unturned to deliver a high quality product for the consumers.  

    Viewership for Hindi News has declined from 3.7 per cent to 3 per cent as per the FICCI-KPMG 2016 report? Is it because of the change in ratings body?

    From the perspective of someone who has been very closely involved with TAM and someone who has been in the technical committee of BARC, what happens is when a body for measurement changes, it definitely leads to various other changes. BARC has included rural data, which is happening for the first time. All of this creates a substantially different way of looking at things. Many channels which earlier were not getting consumed, or did not have a clear focus towards rural, are now changing their operations. It’s too early to say whether things are declining or are going up. 

    At the end of the day, the number of people in absolute numbers consuming news is significantly high. It means today we are talking about 153 million (15.3 crore) households, all being measured by BARC. Till about week 40 of last year, we were only talking about 55 million (5.5 crore) households. So we have added 100 million (10 crore). They will obviously not be watching TV at the same level as earlier. But all the broadcasters are now working towards reaching out to more and more people daily and are changing content for more audiences that are coming up. The news genre overall has not seen a decline, whether it is TAM or BARC. What has happened is that the relative position has moved up or down. Once you get into rural, hyperlocal content plays an important role when it comes to audience measurement in the large sense. This can be seen in GECs where channels like Zee Anmol, Rishtey or Star Utsav that are coming up very significantly. And obviously since they are free to air in that zone, they will get that number of viewership. 

    After DAS phase III, do you think there can be an increase in subscription revenue?

    Subscription revenue has been on an upstream for us quite like for the other players. As the recognitions keep going higher, everything will fall in place, but then, currently digitisation has not completely happened. You do not have perfect addressability because tiering has not clearly happened. Once that happens, you will be able to access more people. The number of players has also got consolidated with every phase of digitization. But the true benefits are yet to come wherein the bulk of money that is coming from the ground is passed on to the hands of a broadcaster. Obviously this will provide a good balance between advertising and subscription money. But that still has not happened to such an extent as what was envisaged earlier.

  • “You will see us relooking at the entire IBN7 proposition in 3-4 months”: Avinash Kaul

    “You will see us relooking at the entire IBN7 proposition in 3-4 months”: Avinash Kaul

    MUMBAI: A visionary who has entered into the foray of vernacular journalism to make it recognised globally. He is a broadcast professional with a career spanning more than 17 years with an immense pool of knowledge in the large variety of roles in sales, marketing, finance, legal and general management.

    Geared up to provide a refreshing outlook to the channels under him, it is the chief executive officer at IBN News Network (CNN-IBN, IBN7, IBNLokmat) Avinash Kaul. He has worked across various genres including news, general entertainment, kids, movies and lifestyle in India. 

    From being a board member of the Media Research Users Council to a part of the technical committee for Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), he has witnessed every chapter of the broadcast industry. With many a feather in his cap, Kaul is now poised to take IBN Networks to newer heights with a prominent footprint in digital with the launch of various properties.

    In conversation with Indiantelevision.com’s Megha Parmar, Kaul sheds light on the revamps in the pipeline, importance of the ratings body, the tug of war between digital and linear television, DAS III roll out effects, and the way ahead for the entire IBN News Network. 

    Read on for excerpts:

    You are revamping CNN-IBN to CNN-News18 from 18th April onwards. What is the idea behind the change? 

    We are infusing a lot of energy and resources behind this relaunch. We have been in talks about this for 2 years and now we are finally ready. This is the first attempt of launching the entire channel. To give a sense of what we are looking at is that news channels over a decade or more have come under pressure. We are mainly focusing on two things – We are stationing more resources on-ground in terms of news gathering, making it far better to what we are terming as immersive journalism. 

    We are putting up a team of reporters who will go and cover in-depth all the multiple angles of each story and be far more immersive into every story that we pick. Reporters have always been the biggest strength of CNN-IBN as compared to all other networks. We are investing more and more into that strength which gives us far more ground presence not only in terms of the number of stories that we are able to collect but we will also follow the mantra of doing it efficiently. We will do justice to each story by putting the sources on ground to cover those stories very comprehensively. This will be a one of the major changes that will be a part of the revamp. 

    The second aspect is the way the discussion and debate space is shaping up. At present, the space has become purely slanging action. We have figured out how we can improve the quality of debates. The people who are in the panel and are discussing should be in order to what we are seeing across various other channels. We have got experts with Swapan Dasgupta, Vir Sanghvi, Ajay Bose, etc., to be our exclusive panellists and we will gradually add more as time passes by. 

    What other changes will we see in the channel? 

    There is a lot of emphasis in terms of change; there is a new news studio, new upgrade of all the back end technologies that we are using, etc. We had the opportunity of revamping and changing our product and making it ready for digital and we are trying to do it in the best way – from the workflow to how will we be available to cater to the digital ecosystem or the second screen. 

    From the people perspective, we have a team of anchors and reporters and we are looking at investing on them and building them over a period of years. Over time, you will also see us invest quite significantly over the weekends in addition to weekdays, something which has traditionally not been seen over a long time on news channels. We are looking at feature programming, some high quality content on weekends. In our new avatar we will be leveraging a lot more CNN content than earlier. A lot of CNN shows will be seen on CNN-News18 like the Fareed Zakharia show. We are also going to get trainers from CNN to our team in terms of news gathering, editorial staff, comprehensive training with the CNN experts.

    Will there be a change in terms of the editorial structure? Are you planning to strengthen the team with a more popular anchor?

    No, there is no significant change in the editorial structure. We now have people driving various aspects. We have hired Anuradha Sen Gupta and she will look after the entire news on weekends. We have Sudeep Mukhia who has joined us as editor for prime time specifically. We are putting more and more resources in each and every time band to improve our quality which you will not typically see in any other news channels where their resources are in short supply. We are looking at filling all those gaps. We have a different team of reporters, anchors, producers only focused on the primetime band. All of them will report to our managing editor Radhakrishnan Nair. The structure won’t change, but the emphasis on each and every aspect will be significantly better. 

    You already have an application for IBNLive. Will it also be revamped or will we see one more application being launched? 

    Yes. In its new avatar, IBNLive app will now be renamed as News18 and the website as News18.com. You will see a completely new layout and approach. We have this app which is going to get upgraded. We are trying to do everything one by one. What you will see on 18th is a completely new packaging for the channel, new music, logo, website, app, new prime-time, new faces, new formats, that’s what is going to happen. In a month’s time you will see a bigger upgrade, one which will be a radical shift from what we are doing now. It’s just a start. We will have lot more things coming in the next few months. Every month you will see some new launches unlike any other channel. 

    Is the logo designed internally or did you hire an agency? 

    It has been done in-house. 

    How do you plan to promote the re-branding? What is your marketing strategy?

    We have a lot of teasers and promos already on-air. Apart from that, you will see heavy promotions on social, network channels, outdoors, print, lot more trade activities, TV, radio, everything will be covered. Yes, there will be a significant focus on digital. 

    What are your plans for IBN7 and IBNLokmat? Will you revamp them? When will we see that happening? 

    We are currently working on CNN’s revamp. You will see us relooking at the entire IBN7 proposition in 3-4 months. That is also on the cards but we are looking at one thing at a time. 

    Is digital a revenue generating proposition for you at this stage or is it too early?

    It has started but it’s not really up there. The growth is picking up very significantly, which is good. We were among the first partners with Facebook when it started with videos. So we are also seeing monetisation having a good growth rate. A lot more interaction is happening and we are keeping a lot of content for such platforms. It’s not the same content that moves from television to digital. We will create separately new content for these platforms. 

    CNN-IBN is having a tough time when it comes to viewership. Are you revamping to change that?

    The revamping has to happen any which ways. It’s not a reflection of if we are going up or down. If you look at the data in the last two weeks, we were at the number 2 position. But that is not something which we looked at when it came to revamping. The work has been on since quite a few months and from that we are launching it all together. We had to get ready with all the pieces of editorial, packaging, etc., in place. It’s not reacting to any number that keeps changing from week to week. Yes, we will always be happy to be at the number one position, or if not that, at least securing ourselves at the second position.

    How important are ratings in the larger scheme of things for a news channel?

    It’s not about absolute weightage on numbers but it’s usually the relative position which holds some value. In the general scheme of things, the numbers are extremely small. It’s more to do with what’s your imagery and perception, what is the quality that you bring to the table. These are usually more important, especially in the case of English news channels. In the case of Hindi news, the ratings play a far more important role than just the imagery or good quality content.  

    Do you plan to strengthen your distribution?

    Of course we will strengthen distribution! We are launching our distribution footprint as well with this revamp. There are lot more activities that we are working on with rebranding and rebuilding a product. Distribution is a part of it.  

    What is the advertisers’ reaction to the revamp?

    The advertisers so far have been pretty enthusiastic about the entire thing. At the end of it, you are investing in a product today, not just for the first screen but also for the second screen. As I mentioned, we are doing so much not just for TV, but also for digital. All of these are opportunities that we now have. We are content for a news company and we deliver our content on both the screens depending where the people are and in what point of time. So if you are on your Facebook timeline, you will get to see news content there as well. It’s only a matter of time. You would see that once BARC starts rolling out digital data in 6-7 months from now, you will see all these efforts being fruitful. Soon you will realise that a lot more consumption will not happen on the first screen, but will happen on second screen from now onwards. 

    How is the advertising revenue shaping up? Is having only advertising a profitable proposition?  

    Advertising revenue keeps growing in phases, because at the end of the day, advertising revenue especially for an English news channel keeps increasing. Earlier, we had lot of banking financial institutions wherein a lot of advertising was happening. Then came in the wave of mobile operators and later came the wave of e-commerce companies. So there is something or other always happening in that particular phase. But until the economy revives fully, you will always see lot more stress coming in the business front. 

    On the other hand if you look at Hindi news, you will see lot more local advertisers, lot more FMCG products coming in, which typically you will not see on English news channels. Despite these transitions, you will have a great year. It’s a cyclical movement; until the general economy starts picking up, many of these things will continue to be ranged down in certain ways. The bulk of the growth that we are seeing today is happening on the entertainment space because no matter the economy, the FMCG space will continue to grow with a lot more advertising. 

    The reason for getting heavily into digital and second screens is one of the key reasons why we want to make sure that we are tapping into all forms of opportunities. It’s not only a question about advertising sales. We are trying to diversify as much as possible with multiple dimensions.

    Is digital gradually taking over the TV when it comes to news? What should the TV players be doing to keep the audience intact?

    No, so far digital has not taken over TV in the case of news. These are two types of media that we are talking about. One is the type of people that are already on the second screen but there are people who still have not bought a TV set. So, out of 240 odd million (24 crore) households in India, only 155 million (15.5 crore) have televisions. As a broadcaster, one cannot abandon one medium for the other. We will continue to do what we are doing on linear TV, and we will also look into investing into something which that is yet to explode, which is digital consumption. Currently, digital consumption is a small percentage of the overall base. It is TV which reaches out to 155 million (15.5 crore) households. Yes, there are 1 billion plus (100 crore) phones in the market, but only 15 per cent of these are smartphones. They cannot get a great quality of video content on them and replace linear TV. That is still few a years away. We are ready for whenever that happens.  

    What can we expect from you and your network? 

    You will see new enhanced high quality products for which we are trying to rope in the best global expertise to make a product of which all of us will be proud of. We will leave no stone unturned to deliver a high quality product for the consumers.  

    Viewership for Hindi News has declined from 3.7 per cent to 3 per cent as per the FICCI-KPMG 2016 report? Is it because of the change in ratings body?

    From the perspective of someone who has been very closely involved with TAM and someone who has been in the technical committee of BARC, what happens is when a body for measurement changes, it definitely leads to various other changes. BARC has included rural data, which is happening for the first time. All of this creates a substantially different way of looking at things. Many channels which earlier were not getting consumed, or did not have a clear focus towards rural, are now changing their operations. It’s too early to say whether things are declining or are going up. 

    At the end of the day, the number of people in absolute numbers consuming news is significantly high. It means today we are talking about 153 million (15.3 crore) households, all being measured by BARC. Till about week 40 of last year, we were only talking about 55 million (5.5 crore) households. So we have added 100 million (10 crore). They will obviously not be watching TV at the same level as earlier. But all the broadcasters are now working towards reaching out to more and more people daily and are changing content for more audiences that are coming up. The news genre overall has not seen a decline, whether it is TAM or BARC. What has happened is that the relative position has moved up or down. Once you get into rural, hyperlocal content plays an important role when it comes to audience measurement in the large sense. This can be seen in GECs where channels like Zee Anmol, Rishtey or Star Utsav that are coming up very significantly. And obviously since they are free to air in that zone, they will get that number of viewership. 

    After DAS phase III, do you think there can be an increase in subscription revenue?

    Subscription revenue has been on an upstream for us quite like for the other players. As the recognitions keep going higher, everything will fall in place, but then, currently digitisation has not completely happened. You do not have perfect addressability because tiering has not clearly happened. Once that happens, you will be able to access more people. The number of players has also got consolidated with every phase of digitization. But the true benefits are yet to come wherein the bulk of money that is coming from the ground is passed on to the hands of a broadcaster. Obviously this will provide a good balance between advertising and subscription money. But that still has not happened to such an extent as what was envisaged earlier.

  • As DAS deadline approaches, Additional District Magistrates empowered to act under Cable TV Act

    As DAS deadline approaches, Additional District Magistrates empowered to act under Cable TV Act

    New Delhi: Even as the country marches towards total cable television digitization, Additional District Magistrates have been designated as authorised officers to exercise the powers conferred upon them under the provisions of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act 1995.

    The powers are to be exercised ‘within the local limits of their jurisdiction’.The Information and Broadcasting Ministry issued a gazette notification on 7 March to this effect.

    The notification says that the Central Government has issued the orders “in exercise of the powers conferred by clause (a) of section 2 of the Act”. However, the powers given to the ADMs will not apply to Section Five relating to the Programme Code and Section Six relating to the Advertising Code.

    Complaints relating to the Programme and Advertising Code are generally handled by the inter-ministerial committee or the self-regulatory bodies of the News Broadcasting Association, the Indian Broadcasting Foundation, and the Advertising Standards Council of India.

     

  • As DAS deadline approaches, Additional District Magistrates empowered to act under Cable TV Act

    As DAS deadline approaches, Additional District Magistrates empowered to act under Cable TV Act

    New Delhi: Even as the country marches towards total cable television digitization, Additional District Magistrates have been designated as authorised officers to exercise the powers conferred upon them under the provisions of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act 1995.

    The powers are to be exercised ‘within the local limits of their jurisdiction’.The Information and Broadcasting Ministry issued a gazette notification on 7 March to this effect.

    The notification says that the Central Government has issued the orders “in exercise of the powers conferred by clause (a) of section 2 of the Act”. However, the powers given to the ADMs will not apply to Section Five relating to the Programme Code and Section Six relating to the Advertising Code.

    Complaints relating to the Programme and Advertising Code are generally handled by the inter-ministerial committee or the self-regulatory bodies of the News Broadcasting Association, the Indian Broadcasting Foundation, and the Advertising Standards Council of India.

     

  • TRAI permits flexibility in interconnect agreements without dilution of model agreement

    TRAI permits flexibility in interconnect agreements without dilution of model agreement

    New Delhi: In view of several disputes in TDSAT and various high courts on the issue, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has prescribed formats of the Model Interconnection Agreement (MIA) and Standard Interconnection Agreement (SIA) to be signed between the multisystem operator and the local cable operator for provisioning of cable TV services through the Digital Addressable Systems (DAS)

    The Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable Services) Interconnection (Digital Addressable Cable Television Systems) (Seventh Amendment) Regulations 2016 issued yesterday said MSO and LCO may enter into an interconnection agreement on lines of the MIA, or by signing the agreement strictly in terms of the SIA. Even as flexibility has been allowed on some issues, it has been mandated that the parties shall ensure that no such agreement will have the effect of diluting any of the conditions laid down in the MIA. 

    If the parties decide to enter into interconnection agreement on the terms of SIA, no addition, alteration and deletion of the clauses provided therein is allowed. They have the flexibility to modify clauses 10, 11 and 12 of the MIA through mutual agreement without altering or deleting any other clause of MIA. They also have a freedom to add additional clauses through mutual agreement to the MIA for stipulating any additional conditions.

    In a press release, the Authority said it was of the view that “the prescription of formats of MIA and SIA will pave the way for growth of the sector, result in reduction of disputes between the MSOs and LCOs, provide level playing field to the parties and increase healthy competition in the sector which ultimately will help in better quality of services to the subscribers.”

    Earlier in 2012, the Authority notified a comprehensive regulatory framework for DAS encompassing the interconnection regulation, the quality of service regulation, the tariff order and the consumer complaint redressal regulation.

    The interconnection regulation for DAS prescribes that MSO and LCO shall enter into a written interconnection agreement before provisioning of cable TV services to the subscribers. It was mandated that the interconnection agreement between MSO and LCO shall clearly earmark the roles and responsibilities in conformance to the quality of service regulations issued by the Authority from time to time.

    However, the Authority, while notifying the comprehensive regulatory framework for DAS did not notify any format specifying the terms and conditions for interconnection agreement as there could be various ways in which MSO and LCO can share the responsibilities in the interconnection agreement.

    TRAI received a large number of complaints regarding various issues in signing of the interconnection agreement between MSO and LCO. On the one end, the LCOs represented that the terms and conditions of draft agreements offered by MSOs are one sided and do not provide a level playing field. On the other end, the MSOs indicated that the LCOs are not willing to follow the terms and conditions of interconnection agreement already executed between them.

    It was noticed that the roles and responsibilities of MSO and LCO for meeting the quality of service norms as prescribed in the Quality of Service Regulations 2012 were not clearly defined in the interconnection agreement signed by them; due to which, in the event of any dispute between them the quality of service delivered to the consumers gets adversely affected.

    A comprehensive consultation process was carried out by the Authority to address the issue and the Authority decided to prescribe the terms and conditions for interconnection agreement in such a way that it addresses the various concerns of the stakeholders as well as it provide enough flexibility for accommodating various plausible business models between MSO and LCO.

    The full text of the Regulation is available on TRAI’s website www.trai.gov.in.

  • TRAI permits flexibility in interconnect agreements without dilution of model agreement

    TRAI permits flexibility in interconnect agreements without dilution of model agreement

    New Delhi: In view of several disputes in TDSAT and various high courts on the issue, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has prescribed formats of the Model Interconnection Agreement (MIA) and Standard Interconnection Agreement (SIA) to be signed between the multisystem operator and the local cable operator for provisioning of cable TV services through the Digital Addressable Systems (DAS)

    The Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable Services) Interconnection (Digital Addressable Cable Television Systems) (Seventh Amendment) Regulations 2016 issued yesterday said MSO and LCO may enter into an interconnection agreement on lines of the MIA, or by signing the agreement strictly in terms of the SIA. Even as flexibility has been allowed on some issues, it has been mandated that the parties shall ensure that no such agreement will have the effect of diluting any of the conditions laid down in the MIA. 

    If the parties decide to enter into interconnection agreement on the terms of SIA, no addition, alteration and deletion of the clauses provided therein is allowed. They have the flexibility to modify clauses 10, 11 and 12 of the MIA through mutual agreement without altering or deleting any other clause of MIA. They also have a freedom to add additional clauses through mutual agreement to the MIA for stipulating any additional conditions.

    In a press release, the Authority said it was of the view that “the prescription of formats of MIA and SIA will pave the way for growth of the sector, result in reduction of disputes between the MSOs and LCOs, provide level playing field to the parties and increase healthy competition in the sector which ultimately will help in better quality of services to the subscribers.”

    Earlier in 2012, the Authority notified a comprehensive regulatory framework for DAS encompassing the interconnection regulation, the quality of service regulation, the tariff order and the consumer complaint redressal regulation.

    The interconnection regulation for DAS prescribes that MSO and LCO shall enter into a written interconnection agreement before provisioning of cable TV services to the subscribers. It was mandated that the interconnection agreement between MSO and LCO shall clearly earmark the roles and responsibilities in conformance to the quality of service regulations issued by the Authority from time to time.

    However, the Authority, while notifying the comprehensive regulatory framework for DAS did not notify any format specifying the terms and conditions for interconnection agreement as there could be various ways in which MSO and LCO can share the responsibilities in the interconnection agreement.

    TRAI received a large number of complaints regarding various issues in signing of the interconnection agreement between MSO and LCO. On the one end, the LCOs represented that the terms and conditions of draft agreements offered by MSOs are one sided and do not provide a level playing field. On the other end, the MSOs indicated that the LCOs are not willing to follow the terms and conditions of interconnection agreement already executed between them.

    It was noticed that the roles and responsibilities of MSO and LCO for meeting the quality of service norms as prescribed in the Quality of Service Regulations 2012 were not clearly defined in the interconnection agreement signed by them; due to which, in the event of any dispute between them the quality of service delivered to the consumers gets adversely affected.

    A comprehensive consultation process was carried out by the Authority to address the issue and the Authority decided to prescribe the terms and conditions for interconnection agreement in such a way that it addresses the various concerns of the stakeholders as well as it provide enough flexibility for accommodating various plausible business models between MSO and LCO.

    The full text of the Regulation is available on TRAI’s website www.trai.gov.in.