ITV

Tag: OmniBus

  • Doordarshan selects OmniBus for news automation

    MUMBAI: The UK headquartered Omnibus System, the provider of broadcast automation and asset management solutions, announced that it will provide pubcaster Doordarshan with news automation and broadcast content management for a new, server-based, news system to be installed in its new headquarters in New Delhi.

    The system will provide journalists with integrated desktop search and edit functions, running inside the AP ENPS journalist workstations. Media content can be viewed and manipulated even as it is still recording, allowing stories to be created and played to air in a very rapid and efficient manner from the Omnibus News Playout suite.

    Omnibus will also provide all the machine and broadcast device management to enable complex MOS rundowns created in the newsroom computer system to be played out effortlessly, while retaining frame accuracy for all primary, secondary, and tertiary events scheduled within any item in the MOs playlist, states an official release.

    Doordarshan engineer-in-chief Ganessan delivered the order to Omnibus on its IBC2005 exhibition stand on 11 September. “Doordarshan is very pleased to give this order to Omnibus and their Indian partners, Shaf Broadcast Pvt. Ltd, who will act as system integrator for the project. This will be the second project that Omnibus and Shaf have completed for Doordarshan, having installed a transmission suite at the C.P.C. site three years ago. We have a long and successful relationship with Omnibus and Shaf and hope it continues for many years to come,” he said.

    “Omnibus is proud to be part of this prestigious project for Doordarshan, and further strengthens our commitment to Doodarshan and the Indian market as a whole,” said Omnibus Systems sales manager Iain Wood.

  • Prasar Bharati can’t be regulator: Parliamentary panel

    NEW DELHI: Content on the idiot-box and its regulation may have become a hot issue (no pun intended here), but a parliamentary panel has shot down a government suggestion that India’s pubcaster Prasar Bharati be empowered through a legislation to regulate content on TV channels.

    Even while agreeing with the information and broadcasting ministry that there is an imperative need to check content on TV channels, private or otherwise, the parliamentary panel has observed, “The committee do(es) not endorse its view with the ministry that Prasar Bharati should be empowered to check or regulate…programme/ads being broadcast by cable operators or satellite channels.”

    The I&B ministry had submitted before the Standing Committee on information technology (that also deals with matters related to broadcasting) that previous attempts to check indecent programming and advertising on TV channels, specifically private ones, had come a cropper. A proposed omnibus legislation encompassing IT, telecom and broadcast sectors too has lapsed.

    Pointing out that the ministry itself would not be able to control/regulate content on TV channels as “there is no regulatory mechanism,” a ministerial representative had submitted before the parliamentary panel that Prasar Bharati be empowered through an amendment in the Prasar Bharati Act and other related legislation to act as a content regulator.

    Prasar Bharati is an autonomous organisation that manages the affairs of Doordarshan and All India Radio.

    “The representative of the ministry added that implementation of this Act (the Cable TV Networks [Regulation] Act, 1995 in this context (indecent and surrogate programming and advertising) had been found hardly fruitful because these (designated) authorities were extremely busy and hardly had time to concentrate on these issues,” the standing panel report states.

    According to the report, a copy of which is available with indiantelevision.com, “The ministry, therefore, requested that Prasar Bharati should be empowered in the Act to prohibit, regulate and check on quality and indecent content being telecast by satellite channels or cable operators.”

    Interestingly, the reason given by the parliamentary panel in not favouring Prasar Bharati as a content regulator is because Prasar Bharati was an interested player in the whole game as a broadcaster.

    “Keeping in view the fact that Prasar Bharati and cable operators (meaning private satellite channels) are competitors to each other,” the pubcaster’s candidature could not be ‘endorsed’,” the panel noted in its fourth report tabled in Parliament on Monday.

    However, the panel directed the government to take up the content regulation issue in all earnest, giving it “top priority without delay.”

    Pointing out that the panel should be kept apprised of developments on this front, the report states, “Government should initiate amendments in the existing Cable TV Network (Regulation) Act in order to constitute an independent and permanent regulatory body.”