NEW DELHI: The Government has taken up with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) the opposition by television channels to the Advertisement Regulation who say they are ?facing difficult business environment due to low revenue accrual?.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari told Parliament that the ministry has received some representations from broadcasters, especially the news channels.

The Minister said that even before the TRAI regulation of 22 March, the Advertising Code under Rule 7 of the Cable TV Networks Rules 1994 provided that ?no programme shall carry advertisements exceeding twelve minutes per hour, which may include up to ten minutes per hour of commercial advertising and up to two minutes per hour of the channel?s self-promotion.

Earlier this month on 10 April, TRAI issued the format in which broadcasters will have to provide information about ad duration on a quarterly basis.

Every television channel will be required to provide details of commercial ads, self promotional ads, and public service ads, where no revenue accrues to the broadcaster, broadcast on a clock hour basis for all 24 hours of the day.

According to TRAI, the said information will have to be reported on the first Saturday and Sunday and the last Wednesday and Thursday of each month of the quarter. For all other days of the quarter, the broadcasters will have to specify maximum duration of the advertisements in any clock hour for each day of the quarter reported upon.

Under Standards of Quality of Service (Duration of Advertisements in Television Channels) Regulations 2012, every broadcaster has to submit information about ad duration on their respective channels in a set format within fifteen days from the end of a quarter.

The TRAI had on 22 March notified the Standards of Quality of Service (Duration of Advertisement in Television Channels) after watering down the amended version of the ad regulation. The main regulation was issued on 14 May last year but had to be amended after it was challenged by broadcasters in the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Redressal Tribunal.

The amended ad regulation has done away with contentious clauses by keeping standardised ad duration at 12 minutes on clock hour basis for all channels as stated under the Advertising Code.

NEW DELHI: Information and Broadcasting minister Manish Tewari has assured that the government is not in favour of regulating media content but a regulatory body is needed on techno-commercial grounds.

Addressing the Fourth CEOs roundtable on broadcast in New Delhi, he said regulation of content in the media space will not come from the executive but through the judicial process.

On TRPs, the minister said the government has been insisting on creation of a body by the industry at the earliest. He said the government is ?more than prepared? if a body is created which will analyse and process data before placing it in the public domain without government intervention in the process.

The minister said the broadcast industry will expand database through digitisation which will increase revenue stream which is skewed.

Tewari also said that there has to be a balance between the evolution of technology and the regulatory architecture. In view of the changes taking place in the broadcasting space, a discussion was necessary within the industry regarding the need of a regulator on techno-commercial grounds.

Referring to the digitisation mechanism, the minister said that all stakeholders need to ensure that they work together for creating an enabling environment. This was critical in view of the consumer being the biggest stakeholder and end-beneficiary.

The government, he said, was aware of the needs of the consumer and desired that the whole process of implementation ought to be done causing the least pain to the biggest beneficiary - the consumer.

Digitisation as a process had to be viewed as a game changer as far as the media landscape in this country was concerned as benefits would accrue to all the stakeholders involved and each played a vital role in the growth of the industry.

NEW DELHI: For those who believe that the government is sure to shift the digitisation deadline for Phase II, there is a cautionary note. Information and Broadcasting minister Manish Tewari has made it clear that an extension of datelines can turn out more harmful.

Tewari, who took over as I&B minister two days before the deadline for the first phase of DAS in four metros, said he did not relent under pressure to extend the deadline.

?I was under tremendous amount of pressure to relax the deadline of phase I, but we decided that we would stay the course. I knew the pitfalls of reneging on deadline and the implications it has on the entire process,? Tewari revealed.

Tewari today said he would have preferred a social contract wherein all stakeholders came together to implement digitisation by taking each other into confidence rather than pushing it down the throat of consumers through a legal mandate.

Giving a keynote at Infocom?Assocham Mets Forum 2013, Tewari said a social contract would have been consensual way of implementing digitisation. He also said that digitisation was eventually between broadcasters, multi-system operators (MSOs), local cable operators (LCOs) and consumers.

?A social contract would have been possibly the most consensual way of taking this course forward. But the government in its wisdom thought it will do it in a legal compact by mandating it,? Tewari said.

He also stressed on the need to take all the stakeholders on board for smooth implementation of DAS (Digital Addressable System) going forward in the remaining phases.

?No stakeholder in this process should feel shortchanged and that?s a responsibility that the industry has to take upon itself so that all the stakeholders are on board and it?s a win-win situation for all,? Tewari stated.

?As we go into phase II, phase III and phase IV we would want the industry to walk that extra mile to get all their recalcitrant fellow travelers on board.?

He also said that the industry needs to move faster on the Broadcasters Audience Research Council (Barc) to replace the current television audience measurement system which is inadequate considering the size of the Indian television industry.
?I will not get into the debate whether a particular model is flawed or kosher because of a lack of alternative but I think it would worthwhile for the broadcasting industry to really move on the Barc. It?s unfair to the broadcasting industry and it?s unfair for the advertisers to have such a small sample which determines how thousands of crores of advertising revenue is spent,? he asserted.

Tewari also assured that the government would walk the extra mile should the industry fast-track the process of forming Barc.

?I don?t know why there is hesitation in the industry to move on it, but I can assure that if the industry decides to take the first step forward we will walk the extra mile to implement Barc provided the industry puts it in the front burner,? he averred.

In a veiled reference to news broadcasters, the minister said that the quality of discourse has to be in tune with the steps taken by the government to correct the flawed business model that exists. He said that the digitisation would in the long run help correct the flawed business model that is currently dependent on ad revenue.

?We are told that the reason why the discourse is so sensational because the ad pie is decided by those 8,000 meters. As we go on digitising, it is important that the stakeholders in media industry need to realise that because the discourse was sensational due to flawed revenue model. Now that there is an attempt to correct it , there has to be a certain amount of equanimity and certain amount of responsibility,? he elaborated.

?I do not say this because we have 2014 in mind or 2019. As a country we have gone through 1999 and 2004 and 2009, so we will go through the democratic cycle - it?s neither here nor there. If you look at India?s interest in the long-term this is an issue that needs to be flagged in a deliberation of this sort.?

Speaking on the contribution of the Film Industry, Tewari stated the Industry had grown on its own adopting innovation and creativity at every stage of development. The industry needed to be appreciated for the role played by it over a period of 100 years through the cinematic portrayal of moving images which had contributed to India?s soft power.

The endeavour of the Government was to initiate suitable measures so as to ensure the growth of India as a soft power in the centenary year of Indian Cinema. The Minister said he was confident that a lot of taxation issues would be resolved for the industry once there was a shift towards the GST regime.

On the Certification process, Tewari said the Ministry was mindful of the fact that the whole process needed to be examined in the light of recent events. In this context, the Ministry had set up a panel under Justice Mudgal to review the mandate and functioning of CBFC and recommend measures including statutory changes to enable CBFC to deal with contemporary requirements of certification and increased transparency / efficiency.

NEW DELHI: Paid news is becoming a menace and there is a growing demand among various groups who are wanting the government to set up a mechanism for controlling this.

Nine complaints of paid news were filed by four different individuals against seven newspapers in 2012-13, but only two are under consideration of the Press Council of India.

While one case was considered time-barred, six were closed for non-pursuance.

Information and Broadcasting Ministry sources said that there were 11 complaints against different newspapers in 2011-12, most of which ended with the Council censuring the newspapers concerned. There were just two reports in 2010-11 (both closed for different reasons).

There were as many as 17 complaints against over ten newspapers in 2009-10, all of which related to elections. The year had seen the General Elections as well as some state assembly polls.

Interestingly, the Press Council of India Committee which had examined the malaise of Paid News had found at least 126 confirmed cases of paid news. In addition, 61 candidates admitted to having paid for news in the print and electronic media.

NEW DELHI: The Information and Broadcasting Ministry wants the post of Member (Finance) in Prasar Bharati to be filled as expeditiously as possible, if the pubcaster has to embark on a path of change in financial and administrative reforms.

The Ministry has therefore written to the Union Cabinet seeking its approval in this regard, since this post has been vacant for over three months since the last incumbent A K Jain was transferred.

The Group of Ministers (GoM) on Prasar Bharati had recommended that the Board of Prasar Bharati should have younger members.

The GoM had suggested that the upper age limit for Member (Finance) should be brought down from 60 to 55 years. The Cabinet had asked the ministry to reconsider the GoM?s recommendation.

Ministry sources said the direction given by the GoM for financial restructuring of the pubcaster could not be implemented unless there was a specialised personnel for handling finances.

NEW DELHI: Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Minister Manish Tewari on Tuesday suggested government should have a role in ?enabling regulatory architecture ? for media, noting that regulation was not keeping pace with march of technology.

Tewari said the media resented regulation of any sort but felt it was necessary to introspect whether the government should be given some latitude for regulating the broadcast media.

It was necessary that a regulatory and enabling environment is in place at a time when the media was on the cusp of a change, he said and described self-regulation as an oxymoron.

The news broadcasters have a self-regulatory mechanism under News Broadcasters Association (NBA) and non-news broadcasters under Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF).

Tewari noted that the broadcasting sector has grown from just one public service channel 20 years ago to over 850 private channels now, and the FM radio had also seen exponential growth.

While dwelling on the social media, Tewari said regulation had failed to keep pace with technology and stressed the need for an enabling regulatory architecture that helps in adapting to changes in newer media.

He wondered how the democratisation of the information paradigm will affect the social milieu. ?While the right to privacy is an intrinsic part of the Constitution, the right to anonymity could be corrosive to social order.?

He was also concerned over issues relating to television rating points which were skewed in favour of the private channels at present. Noting that digitisation may help resolve this issue, he said there was a need for greater deliberation on this issue.

Tewari was delivering the inaugural address at the three-day Broadcast Engineering Services Expo organised by the Broadcast Engineering Society (India). The theme of the conference is ?Convergence and New Broadcast Technologies?.

Earlier, I&B Secretary Uday Kumar Varma said the TRP issue would not ordinarily be something that the government should be worried about, but felt skewed TRPs should not lead to deterioration of content. Furthermore, Prasar Bharati was not getting its fair share in the TRP system at present.

Referring to digitisation, Varma said it was unfortunate that ?we are still struggling with the standards of set top boxes? and regretted that the STBs had no portability.

He expressed satisfaction that the first phase had been very successful, particularly since even developed countries had taken up to a decade to digitise and India had achieved this in less than a year.

He said the plurality and the number of channels had grown so vastly that India was now second only to China, having overtaken the United States.

The I&B Secretary said digitisation gives new opportunities, but how one uses this opportunity is up to the stakeholder.

Referring to radio, Varma wondered why medium wave (MW) could not be developed and helped the way FM Radio was being helped. He said MW had its own specific purpose.

He said the government was keen that India should develop as a digital hub and the relaxations in the foreign direct investment scheme and infrastructure were aimed to make India a preferred destination.

Sam Pitroda, advisor to the Prime Minister on public information infrastructure and innovation, said every fourth Indian will be connected via broadband within the next few years.