ITV

Tag: SC

  • Regulatory bill for TV channels soon, Govt tells SC

    Regulatory bill for TV channels soon, Govt tells SC

    NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting is under intense pressure from the judiciary on the issue of a content code and has informed the Supreme Court that it is soon going to introduce a Broadcast Regulation Bill and Content Code.

    The ministry has told the court that it has set up a committee comprising its own officials, as well as those from the ministries of women and child welfare, health and the trade body Advertising Standards Council of India to look into the issue.

    The apex court had asked the ministry to respond to a writ filed on by Pilot Baba that a news sting show on him had been doctored and put him in a bad light, and asked what the government was thinking on these lines.

    This is the third court order and suggestion on the sticky issue of content on news TV. The Delhi HC had already issued an interim order last month on media bodies and to the I&B officials to discuss the issue of stings and content, and report it to the HC within the next month.

    Earlier, the Delhi HC had suggested that the ministry look into forming a committee to vet every sting operation before it is aired. Alhough that was not an order, indications from Shastri Bhavan in the wake of the SC case are that there could be little option now but to do something on these lines.

    Government sources pointed out the Mumbai Police banning two channels for repeatedly showing the recent violence and distorting events in the process.

    The violence let loose by Raj Thackeray’s MNS workers on the North Indians and Big B in Mumbai had taken place on Sunday last. But way through Monday, it was being shown on all channels, giving the impression that the violence remained uncontrolled.

    Mumbai Police has said that this was a distortion because the violence had taken place for less than an hour and communal passions were being stoked by showing the same clippings throughout the day.

    The ministry had already told Indiantelevision.com that the repetition of scenes of violence and distortion of time and the extent of such violence will not be tolerated and the editors of channels must take a call on that, but the recent reportage has again shown that the media is not listening, insiders said.

    Insiders also said that the ministry had decided to give the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) some more time as the current thinking was to take the industry along for an inclusive Content Code. This seems to be the reason why the government has not taken any action when the NBA failed to send its own draft code as promised on 31 January.

    However, the situation as it is panning out from the court’s mood is leaving the ministry with very little option but to usher in the Content Code and a regulatory mechanism.

  • TDSAT adjourns hearing as Nimbus approaches SC

    TDSAT adjourns hearing as Nimbus approaches SC

    NEW DELHI: The Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) today adjourned its hearing in the case by sports broadcaster Nimbus challenging the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) direction to its channels Neo Sports and Neo Sports Plus to reduce their subscriber price.

    The adjournment till the second week of next month came after TDSAT was informed that Nimbus had filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the Delhi High Court order fixing Rs 37.25 as bouquet price for the two channels.

    Earlier on 22 January, the High Court had dismissed an application by Nimbus and upheld the Trai order of 11 January fixing Rs 37.25 as bouquet price for the two channels. The order of the High Court had also made it clear that Nimbus could recover its cost at the rate of Rs 58.50 if its appeal before the TDSAT was accepted. The Trai order had also asked Nimbus to charge Rs 5 per channel in the areas covered by Conditional Access System (Cas).

    Nimbus contended that Trai can fix the rates only under Section 11(2) of the Trai Act after due hearing to the concerned broadcaster, and not arbitrarily under Section 13 (2).

  • SC reserves order in Sea vs Star case

    SC reserves order in Sea vs Star case

    NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court today completed hearing arguments from both sides, Star TV and Sea TV, a franchise of WWIL, on the question of whether an a broadcaster’s agent could also be an MSO, and reserved its orders.

    The parties concerned have been asked to file written submissions within a week.The case relates to Sea TV, a WWIL franchise MSO based in Agra, which had requested signals from Star.

    However, Star had asked Sea TV to take the signals from one of their agents, Moon TV. It is then that Sea TV had pointed out that Moon TV is actually an MSO in competition with it, and had filed a case in the TDSAT, asking whether a broadcaster’s agent could also be an MSO.

    The TDSAT had earlier last year ruled against Star , who had then filed an appeal with the Supreme Court.

    The court heard the final arguments for two days over lengthy sessions, and reserved its orders.

  • SC tells ESPN to call on it, if govt. seeks to coerce

    SC tells ESPN to call on it, if govt. seeks to coerce

    NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court told ESPN-STAR Sports that it could approach it in case the latter finds itself being coerced by the Central government for not sharing its exclusive feed of the just concluded India-South Africa cricket series with Prasar Bharati.

    The court disposed of the application holding that with the statement of the government, nothing survives in the application.

    The bench, comprising Justice Ashok Bhan and Justice Dalveer Bhandari, on recording the statement of Additional Solicitor General Amrender Saran, that till date, the government had not taken any coercive step, and if it decides to do so, it would issue a show-cause notice, said then the applicant would be free to approach the court, as the series is already over.

    Incidentally, a petition challenging the government guidelines to compulsorily share feed of every national or international tournament with the public broadcaster, namely Doordarshan, in public interest is already pending in the court.

    Earlier, senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for the channel, had contended that his application was for stay of coercive steps and must not be confined to the India-South Africa cricket series.

    ESPN-Star Sports had last week stated that it had filed a writ petition in the Delhi High court seeking to quash the downlinking guidelines, issued in November 2005, compelling the television channels to share the telecast of all matches, even if they were played outside India. This petition was subsequently shifted to the apex court.

    The petitioner had said that though it had exclusive rights for the telecast of the matches, it apprehended that the government would penalise the channel by invoking the provisions under the downlinking guidelines.

    Prasar Bharati had requested it to share the Star-ESPN feed with Doordarshan’s terrestrial channel and proposed sharing of revenue in the ratio of 75:25.

    ESPN-Star Sports had said it would be willing to share the dirty feed (the signal along with advertisements and logo) provided Prasar Bharati paid Rs 35 million for one-day internationals as compensation for loss of subscription revenue.

    It was apparent that Prasar Bharati only wanted to make money and was not really interested whether the public were able to watch cricket matches or not, the petitioner had argued.

    It had sought quashing of the guidelines on downlinking policy.

    In response to that and the hearings today, the Apex court today told ESPN to come back to it if they felt coercion is being resorted to.

  • SC rejects Radio One plea to retain 92.5 FM in Mumbai

    SC rejects Radio One plea to retain 92.5 FM in Mumbai

    MUMBAI: Radio One 92.5 FM will soon be beaming as Radio One 94.3 FM in Mumbai. This follows the Supreme Court’s upholding of the sector tribunal’s decision to allocate it a new common frequency.

    Radio One, managed by Radio Mid Day and BBC Worldwide, had approached the apex court last week challenging the order of the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) to move it away from its 92.5 MHz frequency to a new common 92.5 MHz one.

    “We found no infirmity in the tribunal order and hence the petition (by Radio One) is dismissed,” a bench headed by Justice BN Aggarwal and Justice PP Naolekar has ruled, according to a Press Trust of India (PTI) newswire report.

    In the case, heard yesterday, the bench also rejected the company’s plea for additional time to switch over to the new frequency of 94.3 FM in Mumbai.

    The radio company had earlier moved TDSAT arguing that allocation of a new frequency would hamper the business as the frequency 92.5 FM has grown to be synonyms to its brand in Mumbai.

    Radio One had also questioned the government’s stand on granting of 92.7 frequency to the Reliance-promoted Big FM (Adlabs Radio) in Mumbai despite the norms of having a difference of at least 0.8 frequency between two stations.

    The tribunal had observed, “The importance of brand name of the broadcaster cannot be underestimated, particularly, in view of the provision in the ‘channel identity’ clause which talks of brand name of the broadcaster. Frequency is not part of the brand name of the petitioner. The petitioner got its brand name changed, which was not objected to by the government. Petitioner’s (Radio Mid Day) popularity is through its brand name. It cannot insist on having a particular frequency number.”

    A point of note is also that though Radio One challenged its being moved to the 94.3 FM frequency, it is already broadcasting on this freqeuncy in Bangalore and Delhi.

    TDSAT had responded by asserting that nobody (as in a rival station) stood to gain anything from Radio Mid Day being shifted to another frequency. Rather it is in the interest of Radio Mid Day that it will have same frequency i.e. 94.3 FM for all the cities for which it has a broadcasting licence (except Ahmedabad for which the petitioner makes no grievance), the tribunal pointed out.

  • SC dismisses anti-CAS petition

    SC dismisses anti-CAS petition

    NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court today dismissed on technical grounds a petition filed against implementation of CAS in the three metros of Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai.

    The special leave petition (SLP) had been filed by United Cable Operators’ Welfare Association of India.

    After studying the petition, the Apex court today decided that the SLP did not merit a hearing on a number of grounds, according to information available with Indiantelevision.com.

    The petitioner, amongst several other reasons, had said that rollout of CAS would not be beneficial for consumers and should be deferred as DTH technology had already come in to the country.

    Interestingly, while it had argued in the court against the rollout of CAS, the petitioner has been party to almost all CAS-related meetings organised by the government since 2002.
    According to a Delhi High Court mandated arrangement, agreed upon by the government and the industry, CAS is slated to be rolled out in the south zones of Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai from 1 January 2007.

    The sector regulator has already paved the way for the implementation of CAS by deciding on the prices of pay and free to air channels in a CAS regime.

  • Dish, Star DTH cases: SC declines interim order

    Dish, Star DTH cases: SC declines interim order

    NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court today refused to pass any interim order on petitions filed by Dish TV and Star India relating to a disputes tribunal directive on channel pricing for the DTH platform.

    The apex court admitted both the petitions, but is yet to decide on the next date of hearing.

    Dish TV, the country’s first pay DTH platform, had petitioned to get Star channels at a cheaper rate than what had been directed by TDSAT (Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal). On the other hand, Star’s contention was that the disputes tribunal had no jurisdiction over pricing issues and had accordingly sought a stay on TDSAT’s order.

    An executive of Dish TV said, “We’d have to wait for the court directive. But in the meantime, a deal with Star can be concluded at the prescribed rate of Rs 27 per subscriber.”

    Earlier, TDSAT had said that Star should make available its channels to Dish TV at half the rate at which they are available to cable ops presently. This worked out to RS 27 per subscriber.

    It was only yesterday that Star delivered to Dish TV the integrated receiver decoder boxes that would enable the DTH operator to access its channels for redistribution purposes.

  • Windies tour: SC bars Doordarshan from coercing Ten Sports on feed share

    Windies tour: SC bars Doordarshan from coercing Ten Sports on feed share

    NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has brought to an abrupt halt pubcaster Doordarshan’s “unfettered acess” to coverage of the India cricket team’s tours abroad.

    In a ruling that will for the present hold only for the forthcoming West Indies tour by the Indian cricket team, the apex court ordered today that Ten Sports has exclusive telecast rights to the series and need not share it with the pubcaster.

    A two-judge Bench comprising Justice Ashok Bhan and Justice LK Panta directed that Prasar Bharati (which manages DD) will not take any coercive step or action for taking the live feed of the matches, a Press Trust of India report said.

    India is scheduled to play five one-day matches and four Tests in the Caribbean in a tour that kicks off with the first ODI on 18 May.

    The court, according to one of the parties involved in the case, said that the clause in the downlink guidelines relating to making available feeds of all events of national importance to DD on a mandatory basis lacks proper legal teeth.

    In the absence of a detailed and written order, which will be issued later by the court, the ramification of this order cannot be fully gauged in terms of the overall downlink guidelines, which is being sought to be implemented by the government from 10 May by when all stipulations have to be fulfilled by a channel to get landing rights in India.

    “Going by what the court has said DD will have to do without the West Indies tour, but the ruling is limited to only Ten Sports and the cricket tour concerned for the present,” DD director-general Navin Kumar told Indiantelevision.com.

    Asked if DD will be restrained from carrying French Open tennis, for which Ten Sports holds exclusive rights for the region, Kumar added, “I suppose Ten Sports will have to move a separate application in the court for that. We cannot comment at the moment on what will be our future course of action.”

    Last week, Dubai-headquartered Ten Sports had moved the court arguing that if interim relief was not granted to it this time round, a judgment of the court delivered before the recent Indo-Pak series would become infructuous.

    Taj Television Ltd, owner of Ten Sports, had in its original petition on the matter sought a stay on the government guidelines making it mandatory for the sports channels to share feed of sporting events of national importance with Prasar Bharati.

    It also contended that the court should be guided by the earlier verdict in the India-Pakistan series wherein DD was just a carrier of the Ten Sports signals on its terrestrial network and had also deposited a sum of Rs 150 million in the court towards possible compensation to Ten Sports.

    Ten had said it has already sold distribution rights of the West Indies tour to Set Discovery Pvt Ltd, which will have the right to license throughout the country.

    The Bench had given an inkling on its thinking on the matter at the last hearing itself in actual fact. During the brief hearing last Friday, the Bench observed that last time it was a series with Pakistan and “matches of Indo-Pak series are different from the others.” It added, “For West Indies, many people may not be interested.”

  • Ten Sports moves SC against Prasar Bharati over Windies series telecast

    Ten Sports moves SC against Prasar Bharati over Windies series telecast

    NEW DELHI: The government proposes. Ten Sports disposes. And, the courts find themselves in a bind. Most of the time this could be story of cricket telecasts involving India.

    Now that Ten Sports, which has exclusive rights to telecast the upcoming India-West Indies cricket series, has again moved the Supreme Court today seeking to restrain Prasar Bharti from downlinking the live feed of the matches (read sharing with Doordarshan), the government is likely to act tough.

    A Bench comprising Justices Ashok Bhan and LK Panta posted the matter for hearing on Tuesday (9 May) asking Solicitor General GE Vahanvati to seek proper instructions on the issue as the Dubai-based sports channel has declined to provide the link without payment, a report put out by Press Trust of India states.

    The private channel filed an application contending that if the matches of the Test and one-day international series were simulcast on Doordarshan, it will suffer a huge loss.

    The petitioner said it has already sold the distribution right to Set Discovery Pvt Ltd, which will have the right to license throughout the country.

    Interestingly, Ten Sports has taken refuge behind an earlier SC judgment, saying if interim relief was not granted to it this time round, a judgment the court delivered before the recent Indo-Pak series would become infructuous.

    Taj Television Ltd, owner of Ten Sports, had filed the petition seeking stay of the government guidelines making it mandatory for the sports channels to share feed of sporting events of national importance with Prasar Bharati.

    The court had allowed the live telecast of Indo-Pak ODIs on DD after an agreement was reached between Ten Sports and Prasar Bharati that latter would deposit in court a sum of Rs 150 million and carry the “dirty” Ten signals in toto without booking any advertisement of its own.

    During a brief hearing today, according to PTI, the Bench observed that last time it was a series with Pakistan and “matches of Indo-Pak series are different from the others.” It added, “For West Indies, many people may not be interested.”

    Contacted by Indiantelevision.com, Prasar Bharati CEO KS Sarma refused to comment on the matter saying it was sub judice.

    However, government sources indicated that the I&B ministry is unlikely to bend down easily this time round.

    A source familiar with the developments said, “The government’s plea before the court would be to uphold the downlink guidelines, which are in the process of being implemented.”

    The downlink guidelines state that events of national importance, including cricket, will have to be shared with the pubcaster on a mandatory basis. The ministry has come out with the listed events also, which has been upon after consulting industry stakeholders.

    In an earlier petition in a Mumbai court, Ten Sports has challenged the validity and legality of the downlinking guidelines terming it as arbitrary without the authority of law.

    The sports channel had challenged the Bombay High Court order of 21 December 2005 refusing it any relief. Later the matter pending before the High Court was transferred to the apex court.

  • SC ruling gives FM lifeline to Millenium Broadcasting

    SC ruling gives FM lifeline to Millenium Broadcasting

    MUMBAI: There’s hope yet for Millenium Broadcasting, one of the early entrants into the FM scene in Mumbai with its Win 94.6 station, but which has been off air since May 2004.

    The Supreme Court has thrown a lifeline to the Gautam Radia promoted private radio venture in its long drawn battle with the government, initially fought through the Telecom Disputes Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT).

    The apex court, which heard the case last week, has ruled in Millenium Broadcasting’s favour, concurring with TDSAT’s judgment in the matter. TDSAT had earlier ruled that the government shall not auction the frequency 94.6 MHz and that the company was entitled to broadcast FM radio within the territory of Mumbai.

    In its ruling, TDSAT had also ordered that Millenium Broadcasting was entitled to the benefit of migration from fixed licence fee regime to revenue sharing regime under the second phase of the FM radio policy, which grants this benefit to the existing license holders.

    For the record, the licence of Millenium Broadcast Pvt Ltd was revoked in May 2003 for non-payment of licence fee. Subsequently, in September 2005, the government had invited pre-qualification bids for 338 FM channels in 91 cities across the country, including five FM stations in Mumbai.

    After hearing Millenium Broadcast’s plea in the matter, TDSAT issued an order in October 2005 stating that the frequency shall be excluded from the ambit of the five FM channels in Mumbai that were up for bidding.