NEW DELHI: The Information and Broadcasting Ministry today extended till 23 March to submit documents in support of their eligibility criteria for permission to operate television channels according to the amended Uplinking and Downlinking Guidelines issued in December last year.

This follows directions of the Delhi High Court that all those who had applied before 5 December 2011 when the Guidelines were issued should be given a further extension. The earlier deadline was 4 March 2012.

This will also apply to applicants whose applications were at various stages of consideration in the Ministry.

The new Guidelines had raised the networth of news and current affairs channels almost seven times from Rs 30 million to Rs 200 million for the first channel and Rs 50 million for each additional channel while general entertainment channels and downlinking of foreign channels will have to show networth of Rs 50 million for the first channel as against Rs 15 million at present, 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 permissions of TV channels will be considered for a period of 10 years at a time.

Despite protests from broadcasters, the condition of non-renewal of licences of channels found guilty of violating the terms and conditions of permission including violations of the Programme and Advertisement Code on five occasions or more remains.

The changes came about 18 months after 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.

NEW DELHI: Lalit Modi and his outfit Modi Entertainment Network (MEN) have not had the best of journeys in recent times. MEN has had a string of losses including ESPN and Walt Disney.

The decade-long ding-dong relationship between international fashion channel FTV and its Indian licensee owned principally by MEN has once again surfaced in the Supreme Court, with the Indian licensee seeking to restrain the foreign channel from taking on any other business ventures in India till their dispute is resolved.

The matter in the apex court ? now listed for hearing on 20 January ? relates to a decision in March 2010 by Fashion Television BVI, the global broadcaster of FTV, to terminate its contract with the Indian partner Fashion Television India Pvt. Ltd following differences over sharing revenue and outstanding payments.

The Delhi High Court on 24 May last year restrained FTV from terminating the agreement. This injunction was later removed by an arbitral tribunal.

Austria-based FTV Programmgesellschaft mbH is the parent company of the FTV brand, owned by Michel Adam Lisowski.

FTV and its Indian partner had concluded a five-year agreement in August 2001which included broadcasting rights in India and franchising fBars, the channel?s branded night clubs. This could be automatically extended by another seven years if a joint venture company was not formed between the two parties.

Initially, FTV India was to pay its foreign partner a minimum guarantee of $720,000 per annum and the channel was encrypted for Indian viewers.

However in 2003, FTV Paris went free-to-air via satellite Asiasat 2, leading to a dispute between the two sides over revenue sharing and outstanding payments.

In June 2003, FTV had prepared a civil-criminal charge against Lalit Modi and the Modi Group in France and in India.

FTV had alleged that the Modi Group had been entering into agreements selling the Fashion Bars concept to third parties and collecting substantial advance payment. It said the Modis should have sought written permission to engage Fashion TV in long-term partnerships or franchising agreements.

The Delhi High Court in June 2003 had issued a show cause notice for contempt of court against Fashion TV Paris for not complying with its order of 19 May 2003 directing FTV to re-encrypt the signal of its channel, preventing it from being free-to-air. It also restrained Fashion TV Paris from entering into any third party agreements for distribution, advertising, merchandising and licensing rights.

The order made it clear that no Indian company or group of companies could get into any business arrangement with FTV directly for business purposes in India and the SAARC region without the written consent of the Modi Group, and FTV could not get into any business arrangement in India and the Saarc Region without a consent from the Modi Group. Any such business arrangement was to be in direct violation of the Delhi High Court Order.

But in May 2004, FTV said it had resolved all differences with MEN after a year‘s battle in the Delhi High Court, and an agreement was reached between Lalit Modi and the FTV boss Michel Adam. MEN continued to control FTV India.

FTV India with its India-specific beam agreed to step up its Indian content by developing new shows and vignettes and showcasing Indian fashion, lifestyle and music.

FTV ? which had been launched in 1997 as the world?s first television network entirely dedicated to fashion, beauty and style - had agreed to return to the pay mode once the reworked distribution arrangement set in by the end of 2004.

It is present in over 130 countries on 5 continents through 31 satellites and over 1000 cable systems. Broadcast by leading global media groups such as Eutelsat, BSkyB and Astra C, Fashion TV has a confirmed reach of over 130 million households.

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Friday commenced hearing of a petition challenging the decision of Prasar Bharati de-recognizing all associations of employees, rejecting a plea by counsel for the pubcaster seeking dismissal of the plea.

The hearing will continue on 26 September when counsel for the associations as well as those of Prasar Bharati will present their arguments.

Until now, nine associations of employees were formally recognised by the management and the Information and Broadcasting Ministry which has been talking to their representatives on various issues.

However, an order issued on 8 September said no association of employees of the pubcaster is recognised and, therefore, no employee can be given preferential treatment.

It further said all employees are to be treated in a fair and transparent manner and nullified an earlier order issued by Director General of All India Radio on 18 December 2008.

The staff of All India Radio and Doordarshan protested against this move and observed a day-long dharna from 10 am to 5 pm without disrupting work on 21 September.

NEW DELHI: An episode from the reality show, ‘Emotional Atyachaar", was viewed in the Delhi High court today as the Chief Justice wanted to examine the allegation that the programme is vulgar.

The 30-minute episode about gays and sex change issue was shown in the chamber of the Chief Justice Dipak Misra in the presence of counsel for the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, UTV-Bindass TV, and the petitioner Sanjay Tiwari Ujjala.
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The Court directed the Ministry to view another episode and inform the Court by 11 August whether it was within the parameters mentioned in the Self Regulatory mechanism adopted by the Indian Broadcasting Foundation and approved by the Government.
 
The petitioner claimed that the reality TV show ‘Emotional Atyachaar‘ is really an ‘emotional atyachaar on the viewers‘ as it is nothing more than infringing the privacy of individuals and spreading vulgarity.

The petitioner through his counsel Rahul Mehra claimed that the TV show had bypassed all norms of decency and was showing indecent scenes where viewers of varied age groups ranging from children to women and senior citizens were exposed to them. He said the show causes deep hurt to the people and is a blot on civilized society.

The Court asked the Ministry whether any pre-censorship mechanism was being observed when allowing the shows to be aired on TV channels. Appearing on behalf of the Ministry, Rohit Agrawal said there are no formal rules or parameters
for TV channels except the self regulatory mechanism adopted by the electronic channels.

Any action against a channel is taken only if there is any complaint for showing vulgar or any other prohibited material, he added.

Ujjala represents an NGO Indraprastha People which is seeking a ban on the reality show as it is allegedly spreading vulgarity and demoting social and moral values. He alleged that by airing this programme, the channel has violated the norms and morality guidelines laid down by the government.

The Court - which took cognisance of the petition in February - had on 14 July decided to see two recent episodes of the reality show and said that a division bench of Misra and Justice Sanjiv Khanna would also examine whether set guidelines have been followed while allowing its telecast.

NEW DELHI: Tripurari Sharan, a senior Indian Administrative Officer who is presently serving in his home state Bihar, is to be the new Director General of Doordarshan.

Sharan is being posted on deputation in Doordarshan for five years. Informed sources expressed surprise since the normal tenure is three years.

Sharan, presently Principal Secretary for the Food Department in Bihar, is an IAS officer of the 1985 batch.
He has earlier served as Director of the Film and Television Institute of India, during which time he had directed a feature film ‘Woh subah kidhar nikal gayi‘ produced under the auspices of the Institute.

After interviews held on 15 March, the Prasar Bharati Board had prepared a shortlist of three persons for Doordarshan and two persons for All India Radio for the post of Director-General.

According to the procedure, this list was sent to the Ministry which was expected to forward it to the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) for selecting the Directors-General of the public service broadcasters. 

The names suggested after extensive interviews by the Board on 15 March - in that order - were L D Mandloi, Tripurari Sharan (1985, IAS, Bihar), and Ramsubhag Singh (1987, IAS, Himachal Pradesh) for the post of DG Doordarshan, while G Jayalal and L D Mandloi were shortlisted for the post of DG AIR.

The meeting had been presided over by Prasar Bharati Chairperson Mrinal Pandey and attended by eight other members including Rajiv Takru, Additional Secretary of the Ministry and nominated member in the Board who is currently holding charge as CEO.

While Sharan‘s name was third on the list for DD, it has been alleged by the Doordarshan Empanelled Producers Association that this order was changed following oral communication from the Information and Broadcasting Ministry and all Board members were asked to sign afresh on the new order of preference.

A majority of the members agreed with the new list but reduced the number of persons to just two. While five of the nine members including the Chairperson and Takru approved this new order of preference, three members removed the name of Ram Subhag Singh in the DD list. The ninth member insisted on sticking to the original order of preference, though he also removed the name of Singh.

In the case of All India Radio, the appointment of DG has been held up as at least one of the persons shortlisted - Jiyalal - has gone to the Central Administrative Tribunal, which has since reserved its orders after hearing both sides.

It may be recalled that the Delhi High Court had in 2008 said Mandloi - who has been asked to hold additional charge more that three times as DG - was qualified to be Director General of Doordarshan.

It is interesting that this comes close on the heels of two other IAS officers, BS Lalli and Aruna Sharma, having been indicted - the former in many cases, and the latter in the matter of the Commonwealth Games.