Regulations in Full Stream

Oflate the Electronic Media, instead of giving news has itself become a news. 

Last month, the I&B Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi held a meeting of the stakeholders regarding the television rating system which he had earlier commented, was inadequate to provide information about the viewership of TV channels. He showed his surprise that a mere seven thousand people meters fixed in some unknown households are used to measure the viewership of more than 200 channels amongst 115 million TV households. Over and above, there is only one company that has a monopoly in this business and is literally controlling an ad market of Rs500 crores. Not only this, what surprised the minister most was that Doordarshan, that has the maximum reach in the country is hardly ever represented in this race for TRPs because rural, semiurban areas and many states like Orissa, Northeast and J&K were not even covered at all. The I&BMinistry is now carrying out a review of the TRP system with the help of other stake holders and we hope to see some good results. 

DTH to Ensure Quality

The DTH guidelines and licensing conditions were issued by the Government of India in 2001. Doordarshan has been offering free-to-air DTH services to its customers for some time. Subsequently, two DTH operators offering pay DTH services have also rolled out their operations. However, it is only in the last one year that these two pay DTH operators could offer popular TV channels and content and thus gain acceptance among the consumers. Four more pay DTH operators are either in the process of rolling out their services, or in the process of getting DTH licenses. One of the reasons for the delay in rolling out DTH services was the difficulty faced by the broadcasters and the DTH operators in concluding their interconnection agreements on time, and the issue in two such cases had to be resolved by the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT), This not only affected the growth of the sector, it also hampered competition because DTH at present is the only effective alternative to cable TV. There are about 3.2 million subscribers of pay DTH services, as compared to nearly 70 million subscribers for cable TV. For DTH to provide effective competition, TRAI issued the Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable Services) Interconnection (Fourth Amendment) Regulation, 2007 and Quality of Service Regulations. Both these regulations will come in effect from 1st December 2007. The salient features of the Interconnection Amendment Regulation are as follows:

TRAI MOOTS IPTV & MOBILE REGULATIONS

INTRODUCTION 

Convergence technologies are gaining momentum f to reach more and more people in the world. All these are gaining a global scale. Now the services impact not :gion but the whole country or even many countries. re are too many technologies proliferating in different Revision delivery is one such service which a few years restricted to terrestrial broadcasting and now has given Cable TV, DTH, IPTV and now Mobile TV. With the ig popularity of Television and lowering of cost of gy, it has become essential to frame regulations to he exploitation of the consumers by these technology s. After dealing with Cable TV and DTH, TRAI, the r has now fixed its gaze at IPTV and Mobile TV and msultation papers for a public debate. 

Politicisation of the Broadcasting Bill

The very basis of our democracy's existence is Politics. But this mJL that was initially a method to have a favourable Government for the citizens, since long has been exploited in real sense. And today the situation has become so worse that 'Polities' is used in terms of Tactics' and not anything else. Tactics here mean the schemes that are played to let down others and ultimately upgrade own-self. The influence of Politics has been very far reaching and today we find it in every field of our life. Be it workplaces, colleges, societies etc.

It is the 'Broadcasting Bill1 that has always been a major target of the Politics of our country. But, Mind it... This attack has 'never been positive' or say 'always been negative'. Quote it this way or that way, the meaning remains the same but the impact worsens day by day. 

The BATTLE for C-band

Satellite professionals/operators have faced spectrum battles in the past, but with luge and hungry telecommunications firms lobbying to gain more access to C-band for then- next generation wireless services, satellite players may face their toughest spectrum fight yet. With a key International telecommunications Union (ITU) meeting set to begin later this year, satellite operators and their customers are in a race against time to put together compelling arguments to make sure C-band spectrum remains reserved for satellite services and is not lost to a powerful and well-financed competitor.

Season of Regulations

Regulation of content has been much in the news in the last month. Jovernment's intention of presenting the Broadcasting Services Bill in the Monsoon Session of the Parliament was scuttled down by the Media big-wigs, particularly the news broadcasters in the name of freedom of press. That besides, we cannot under estimate the impact of a bad news or a manipulated news on the gullible masses. They believe what they see.

Television media has much greater impact than the print media as the TV viewers encompass all rich and poor, literates and illiterates, children as well as the elderly. Particularly the lower middle classes and the poorer section of the society that still live with a community feeling are impacted in a big way. We have seen all this happening many times over the last few months. The 'Gurjjar1 agitation, Uma Khurana Case, Patna case of dragging a thief tied behind a police motorcycle are just a few examples. Every day we hear and read about public lynching. All these are caused by incitement created by the electronic media that tries to sensationalise a small event. People try to overdo things in front of the cameras. 

October 2007

Monady, October 1, 2007 -- Prasar Bharti dropped five channels from its DTH service, 'DD Direct Plus', for not paying the carriage fees. Aajtak, Headline today, TV9, Akashbangla and Star Utsav have been dropped after repeated notices.