| With
India having touched the monumental figure of 512 in terms of television channels
including 249 news channels, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry pushed
the panic button towards the end of 2009, asking the Telecom Regulatory Authority
of India (Trai) to study how many channels can be permitted in the country. As
a follow-up, the Government has with immediate effect suspended receipt of new
applications for permission to uplink television channels from India and downlink
channels to India until the regulator submits its report on spectrum availability. In
an order of 18 January, the Ministry said "it has been observed that although
improved technologies have resulted in better utilization of the available spectrum
and transponder capacities, the spectrum and transponder capacities for satellite
TV channels are not unlimited. A need is felt to revisit the present policy for
uplinking and downlinking with respect to the approach towards grant of permission
including the eligibility criteria and the terms and conditions of the permission." Early
in October 2009, I&B Minister Ambika Soni had written to Trai Chairman J S
Sarma to examine issues relating to expansion of private television channels in
the country. The Minister asked the Authority to examine ways of checking the
financial viability of parties that apply for setting up news channels in the
country. However,
Soni on 7 December denied in Parliament that the directive to Trai to examine
the status of television channels in the country implied any plans to curb the
growth of the sector. She said the study to examine the maximum number of channels
that could be telecast was being carried out in view of spectrum constraints. "The
government is surely not going to shut the door on the growth of TV channels in
India. But there is a logistic problem and the government has to sort it out.
Some of our growth plans may be temporarily upset," says the head of a broadcasting
company on request of anonymity. Meanwhile,
the I&B Ministry is also keen that the Broadcast Services Regulation Bill
that is pending finalization for about three years should sail through and provide
for an independent regulator and a Content Code. A
senior Ministry official told indiantelevision.com that a task force had been
set up under the chairmanship of the Secretary in the Ministry, Mr Raghu Menon,
and had already held a few internal meetings, The task force - which comprises
representatives from the Indian Broadcasting Foundation, the Broadcast Editors
Association, and the News Broadcasters Association among others - would now meet
stakeholders including consumers, representatives of the print media, civil societies,
and editors "to understand their concerns." "Self-regulation
has some limitations," the official added without elaborating, while referring
to the Content Code and the Regulatory Body formed by the News Broadcasters Association. It
was expected that this task force would complete its work by March this year.
The official said the issues under discussion were not merely content, but also
quality of service, carriage fee, service charges and so on. Thus, the entire
responsibilities that the independent regulator would have to bear would be finalised. However,
the Cable Operators Federation of India has challenged the constitution of the
Task Force on the ground that those sought to be regulated cannot adjudicate on
the kind of regulation the government can impose. Meanwhile,
six State Monitoring Committees and 67 District level Committees have been constituted
to review and deliberate on the litany of complaints received by authorized officer
or take suo motu cognizance of violations transmitted and re-transmitted in the
local channels.
Over 130 Advisories/Warnings/Orders were issued to various
TV channels for violation of the Programme and Advertising Codes prescribed under
the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 and rules framed thereunder. Interestingly,
many of the notices issued during 2009 related to reality shows like Big Boss
on Colors, Pati Patni aur woh on NDTV Imagine, and Sach ka Saamna on Star Plus,
apart from some for popular series like Bandini on NDTV Imagine and Balika Vadhu
and Na aana is des Laado on Colors, and most of the others for the content of
commercial advertisements. A
total of 77 private satellite TV channels were permitted to uplink/downlink under
the uplinking and downlinking guidelines, taking the number of general entertainment
channels to 263. Permission has been given to set up nearly 75 teleports. In
comparison, there were 417 private channels (357 uplinked from India including
197 news channels) and 33 Doordarshan and Parliamentary channels in 2008. Trai
had earlier issued a consultation paper on restructuring of the cable sector,
and is understood to be working on a deadline since cable operators have not been
responding to the questionnaire placed by it on its website. After
obtaining the Union Cabinet's approval to issue policy guidelines for Headend-In-The-Sky
(HITS) operators, the guidelines were announced on 26 November 2009. Being a digital
delivery mode of distribution, HITS would speed up the process of digitalization
of cable services located in non-Cas (conditional access system) areas of the
country. Though
the country failed to make much headway in the area of IPTV despite the Ministry
having rushed through amendments in the downlinking guidelines for this segment
in September 2008, this was attributed to the slow pace of broadband growth and
to the strong penetration of cable TV and growth of DTH. IPTV operators also complained
that there was very little clarity provided by the government on content issues. Media
companies are hoping that the government will hike FDI (foreign direct investment)
limit and come out with more liberal policies in 2010 to fuel the sector's growth.
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A
blank in 2009, wait for FM radio policies this year | 
