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NO WORD ON DTH YET
What now for DTH? That's a question that's
echoing in media analysts offices and with channel managers
in India. The new information and broadcasting minister
Arun Jaitley has uttered nary a word on the issue.
In its earlier avatar after being toppled
from Parliament, a government appointed Group of Ministers
(GoM) committee on DTH had told DD that it should approach
the Election Commission (EC) for clearance to launch
its Ku-band DBS service with a two year exclusivity
term. The EC had shot down the proposal saying it would
be better if all political parties in the next Parliament
discussed it. DD had then said it was open to outsourcing
the technology and management of its Ku-band service.
The DTH aspirants include: the much slimmed
down Star TV's ISkyB, DD, Zee TV, Lalit Modi's Modi
Entertainment Group (with Loral), and C. Sivasankaran
(is he still interested or is it the Internet for him).
Apart from infrastructure areas, one
of the areas that the American lobby is going to push
for is media and broadcasting. US business delegations
are whizzing into India in a bid to get favourable regulations
in terms of a liberal equity regime. A high-powered
US-India business summit is scheduled to be held later
this month with the turnout of US senators, lobbyists
and high net worth investors. US president Bill Clinton
has already announced the withdrawal of sanctions against
India and the effort is to develop a spirit of Indo-US
camaraderie. A visit next year is on the cards.
Will the domestic lobby, which has support
from the ideologies behind the BJP - the RSS and the
VHP - keep quiet as the government goes about the task
of prying open the crucial media sector? Definitely
not. The fear in the minds of the Indian media barons
is that if television regulations - which have been
pending for four years - are made easy for foreigners
what guarantee do they have that the same will not take
place in the print media. They definitely do want to
see the likes of Time or Playboy being published in
the country.
Contrasting this keep-the-door-closed
attitude are the few so-called liberals in the National
Democratic Alliance and the BJP, who are very forward
thinking and would like an open environment.
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