The Center for Advocacy and Research (CFAR) is organising a discussion on 'The Cable Industry and the Viewers: Setting New Norms and Standards' tomorrow, 30 April.

The two-hour debate to be held at the Indian Women Press Corps (IWPC) office in New Delhi, plans to be the beginning of a series of interventions the centre has planned around the issue. CFAR hopes to initiate a process through which various stakeholders in the television industry come together and share their experiences and vision for the future.

Television technology has become the main concern among all its stakeholders, says CFAR. While viewers have been expressing their concern on rising subscription charges, the indifferent attitude of cable operators towards quality of service, little or no impact of digitisation on quality of images, other stakeholders (broadcasters, MSOs, cable operators and policy makers) have their own share of concerns and grievances, it notes.

As the shift from the present system to the Conditional Access System is being planned, the centre plans to initiate a process through which the stakeholders come together to find some common solutions. CFAR regularly conducts public interest research with a focus on gender and development issues, and has over the last six years, built up a consumer response to media content in the form of an audience collective called the Viewers Forum. It operates out of Delhi, Ahmedabad and Lucknow and in Nadwasarai village at Mau District in Uttar Pradesh.

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