NEW DELHI: Under fire from broadcasters for its decision to recast policy guidelines for TV, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry has said no final decision would be taken without addressing the apprehensions of broadcasters.

Reiterating the Government would prefer self-regulation by channels, I&B Minister Ambika Soni said: "We will be holding discussions with broadcasters? bodies."

The government had over the weekend toughened the Uplinking and Downlinking Guidelines by not only increasing the net worth criteria for both news and general entertainment channels, but also said renewal will be subject to a channel not having violated the Programme and Advertising Codes five or more times.

Both the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) and the Broadcasters Editors Association (BEA) described the move as a direct assault on the independence of the media.

The new policy guidelines for companies seeking to operate TV channels in India include revising the net worth criteria for uplinking of non-news and current affairs channels and downlinking of foreign channels from Rs.15 million to Rs.50 million for the first channel and Rs.25 million for each additional channel.

For uplinking of news and current affairs channels, the net worth criteria has been increased from Rs.30 million to Rs.200 million for the first channel and Rs.50 million for each additional channel.
 

NEW DELHI: Even as the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) described the decision of non-renewal of licence in the cast of five or more violations as arbitrary and unconstitutional, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry expressed surprise at the strong reaction.

Ministry sources said that the Government?s view in this regard had been conveyed to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India last year and it had also been placed on the Ministry?s website. Simultaneously, Trai had also placed these views on its website.

Thus Ministry sources wondered why none of the stakeholders had made known their objections, although wide publicity had been given to the Government?s views on Trai?s recommendations.

Furthermore, the sources told indiantelevision.com that the purpose of the proposal had been completely misunderstood.

Under the Guidelines prior to the Cabinet?s approval of the amendments, any channel could be asked to go off air up to a maximum of 30 days on first violation, and 60 days on second violation, and face cancellation of licence on third violation. The sources said the Government had never acted harshly and no channel had been asked to go off air for more than 15 days.

As the first decade of private satellite television had come to an end and the channels were to seek renewal, the Ministry had asked Trai to revisit the Uplinking and Downlinking Guidelines. The approval by the Cabinet said the Ministry may or can refuse to renew the licence of a channel which had been found guilty on five or more occasions of violations of the Programme and Advertisement Codes.

Meanwhile, the NBA said there "cannot be any power vested in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry to cancel" or "refuse to renew" a broadcaster?s licence on their subjective view that a television channel has violated the terms of the Uplinking and Downlinking Guidelines or the provisions of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act 1995.

Describing the Government?s amendments to the Guidelines as "a direct assault on the self regulatory regime put in place by broadcasters", the NBA which is the apex body of TV news broadcasters said there is no such requirement under the existing Uplinking & Downlinking Guidelines for renewal .

The self-regulatory regime had, in fact, been encouraged and recognised by the Ministry. The proposed step, therefore, "is wholly retrograde and places broadcasters at the arbitrary mercy of the Ministry; and is therefore a violation of the constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression and will not be countenanced by the NBA".

In a statement, NBA noted with regret that the Cabinet had ?purportedly approved certain modifications? to the Guidelines including one which provides for non-renewal of licence of a TV channel found "guilty" of violating the terms and conditions of permission including violations of the Programme and Advertisement Codes on five or more occasions.

The statement noted that proceedings following the Show Cause notices issued by the Ministry to broadcasters on various counts have ?been conducted internally within the Ministry and never has been in the nature of adjudication.?

"Be that as it may, certain other broadcasters have complied with directions issued by the Ministry for running apologies and even shutting down their channels for certain periods of time. To now retrospectively use such proceedings to deny permission to broadcast for future is wholly arbitrary, illegal and unconstitutional".

Placing on record its ?deep anguish to such amendments to the Guidelines, the NBA urged the Government to urgently review the "regressive decision which would be anathema to the constitutional framework of our country."

NBA is seeking an urgent appointment with Minister Ambika Soni to explain and clarify the Association?s concerns, the statement said.
 

MUMBAI: A fornight after he was admitted to the Lilavati Hospital as he suffered from brain haemorrhage, renowned ghazal singer Jagjit Singh today passed away at the Hospital at 8.10 am after suffering a terrible haemorrhage.

Popularly known as the Ghazal King, Singh gained acclaim along with his wife Chitra Singh. It may be noted that they were the first ever husband-wife team who gained immense popularity in the history of recorded Indian music.

Condoling the death of the Ghazal maestro, composer and music director, I & B Minister Ambika Soni said, ?the untimely death of Jagjitji has left a void which will be difficult to fill. His unique voice was a departure from the prevalent style of ghazal rendition, which instantly became a hit with the masses."

She said all his compositions were lyrical masterpieces and shall remain embedded in our minds forever.

Recipient of Padma Bhushan award, Singh has sung in several languages including Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi and Nepali among others. His popular ghazals include Meri zindagi kisi aur ki, mere naam ka koi aur hai, Apni marzi se kahan apne safar ke hum hain, Wo jo hum mein tumme qaraar tha, Patta-patta boota-boota haal hamaara jaane hai, Hoshwalo
ko khabar, etc.

Singh has also sung for popular movies like Sarfarosh and Tarqeeb.
 

NEW DELHI: The Indian government is making it tougher for those who have dodgy backgrounds to launch new channels, particularly in the news genre. While there is no cap on the number of television channels in the country, the net worth norms have been stiffened.

For news and current affairs channels, the net worth criteria has been revised upwards, climbing almost seven times from Rs 30 million to Rs 200 million for the first channel and Rs 50 million for each additional channel.

Clearly, the government has been influenced by a wide array of channel launches from promoters who are not serious about the news business but have got in because of dubious reasons.

In the case of the general entertainment channels and downlinking of foreign channels, the net worth criteria has been revised from Rs 15 million to Rs 50 million for the first channel and Rs 25 million for each additional channel.

The period of permission/registration for uplinking/downlinking of channels will be uniform at 10 years. Renewal of the ermissions of TV channels will be considered for a period of 10 years at a time, subject to the condition that the channel should not have been found guilty of violating the terms and conditions of permission including violations of the Programme and Advertisement Code on five occasions or more.

This follows a decision of the Union Cabinet to recast the existing "Policy Guidelines for Uplinking and Downlinking of TV channels". The Information and Broadcasting Ministry has also made various amendments in the existing policy to reflect the fast evolving electronic media landscape in the country.

The changes come about 15 months after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) made its recommendations, since the Ministry had felt those recommendations were too steep and sent its own views to the regulator for taking a final view.

The amendments envisage significant changes in the eligibility criteria of companies seeking to operate TV channels in India in order to ensure that only serious and credible operators are permitted to operate such channels and the electronic media landscape is not unnecessarily crowded by non-serious players.
 
Permission had been granted by 31 August this year to 745 private satellite TV channels, out of which 366 TV channels were permitted in the category of ‘News and Current Affairs‘ and 379 in the category of ‘Non-News and Current Affairs‘.

The net worth criteria for teleports would be uniform irrespective of channel capacity. The net worth criteria would remain Rs 30 million for the first teleport and Rs 10 million for every additional teleport.

All TV channels would be required to operationalise their TV channels within a time frame of one year from the date of permission, for which Non-News and current affairs channels will have to sign a Performance Bank Guarantee (PBG) of Rs.10 million whereas News and Current Affairs channels will have to give a Performance Bank Guarantee for Rs. 20 million. In the event of non-operationalisation of the permitted channel within a period of one year, the PBG will be forfeited and permission cancelled.

One of the persons occupying the top management position - Chairperson or Managing Director or Chief Executive Officer or Chief Operating Officer or Chief Technical Officer or Chief Financial Office in the applicant company - should have a minimum of three years of prior experience in a media company, for both News and Non-News channels.

Proposals of merger, de-merger and amalgamation will be allowed under the provisions of Companies Act, after obtaining the permissions of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.

Channels operating in India and uplinked from India but meant only for foreign viewership should be required to ensure compliance of the rules and regulations of the target country for which content is being produced and uplinked.

Permission fee for uplinking/downlinking of TV channels and setting up of teleports would be Rs 200,000 per channel/teleport per annum. Permission fee for downlinking of TV channels uplinked from India would be Rs.500,000 per channel per annum. Permission fee for downlinking of TV channels uplinked from abroad would be Rs 1.5 million per channel per annum.

Trai had initially recommended that for general entertainment channels, the total net worth requirement should be Rs.250 million for first channel, and enhanced by Rs100 million for each additional channel. But for news and current affairs channels, the total net worth requirement should be Rs1 billion for first channel, and enhanced by Rs.250 million for each additional channel. The Trai recommendations had come following a directive from I&B Minister Ambika Soni in October 2009 to examine whether there was need to put a cap on the number of TV channels in the country.

There are separate Policy Guidelines for permission/regulation of private satellite TV channels in India. While regulation of foreign TV channels uplinked from abroad and distributed in India for public viewing is governed by "Policy Guidelines for Downlinking of Television channels" notified on 11 November 2005, private TV channels which are uplinked from India are governed by "Guidelines for Uplinking from India" notified on 2 December 2005. Uplinking Guidelines also provide for permission and regulation of Teleports. After these Guidelines were notified, there has been an exponential growth of television channels, especially during the last few years.

NEW DELHI: Even as it blames Prasar Bharati for favouring the British firm SIS Live in the bidding for the Commonwealth Games broadcasting deal, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) says that the Information and Broadcasting Ministry delayed the tender process and left no options except to agree with the pubcaster‘s recommendations.

The CAG in its report on the Commonwealth Games with a full chapter on broadcasting also says Prasar Bharati amended the draft contract to allow SIS Live to "outsource almost the entire contract on the same day" to Indian firm Zoom Communications. SIS Live had been awarded the Rs 2.46 billion broadcasting contract.

In many ways, the CAG report supports most of the allegations framed by the V.K. Shunglu Committee appointed by the Prime Minister. However, the CAG report does not name then-Prasar Bharati CEO BS Lalli and former Doordarshan Director-General Aruna Sharma for causing a loss of Rs 1.35 billion as Shunglu had done. The report has, instead, pointed the finger at the Ministry and the pubcaster as a whole.
 
CAG in its section on the Media and Broadcasting Services says the award of the contract was flawed on several grounds.

"Lack of competition was facilitated by a rigid stand taken by Prasar Bharati at the stage of bidding, which restricted potential competitors, leaving only one ‘chosen‘ bidder," says the report. However, after SIS Live won the deal by virtue of being the sole bidder, the pubcaster amended the contract to "make it one-sided in favour of the SIS Live." Among the important amendments include the change of payment schedule, allowing a pre-Games payment of 60 per cent instead of 40 per cent of the contract.

The draft contract was amended to allow SIS Live to use "sub-contractors" such as Zoom Communications which went on to do the bulk of the work, but would not have been eligible to bid for the contract itself. The CAG report says this meant SIS Live was "acting essentially as a conduit" enabling the "back-door entry of Zoom".

The CAG also blames the oversight team, noting that the host broadcast management committee was marred by conflicts of opinion. "Of the 40 meetings for which minutes are available, only two are signed by all members. Objections to contract amendments were ignored."

Both I&B Minister Ambika Soni and Law Minister Veerappa Moily, who chaired the Oversight Committee together, did intervene, saying that changing the payment schedule should be re-considered. However, their intervention "did not have any lasting effect", notes the CAG.

I&B Ministry secretary Raghu Menon has admitted in a letter to the CAG that this was largely due to lack of time. The Ministry was "left with no alternative but to accede to the demands (of SIS Live), since non-telecast would be a matter of international embarrassment," says the report.

The CAG‘s report on the autonomous body also blames it for causing the loss of revenue of Rs 18 million by not allotting two vacant slots of its DTH platform despite 38 pending requests.

Menon wrote: "Given the circumstances and the fact that there is no time to initiate fresh process, the Ministry does not have the option of revisiting the issue." The secretary also mentioned that then Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar wanted the telecast to be ensured.

Soni at an Oversight Committee meeting constituted to provide policy direction on telecast issues, felt that changing the payment schedule can open legal intervention by other parties and said some parties chose to opt out of the bidding process because of the terms and conditions of the payment schedule.

In the same meeting, the CAG says, Moily felt the opinion of solicitor general Gopal Subramanium had not specifically given a finding on legality of changing the payment condition, which Soni said Subramanium should have done rather than leaving the decision to competent authority.