Demand for a regulatory authority and implementation of the CAS ranked high on the agenda of the seminar on ‘Cable TV : New Age Dictatorship‘ held in Mumbai on Monday.
Organised by the Consumer Action Network (CAN), an organisation comprising citizens concerned about consumer welfare, the seminar aimed to highlight issues currently faced by cable TV viewers in India and to bring consumers together on a common platform. Speakers included former minister Pramod Navalkar, former sheriff Nana Chudasama, cable op Johnwin George and CAN national president Ahmed Abdi.

Topics discussed ranged from lack of choice for viewers, arbitary rate hikes, absence of any regulatory authority in India unlike other countries and lack of any government initiative. While Chudasama and George stressed the need for a regulatory authority in the broadcasting and cable industry, Navalkar called upon the consumers to unite and urge the government to take up cudgels on their behalf.

Even as the cabinet committee pondered the issue in New Delhi the same day, CAN president Abdi urged the government for implementation of the Task Force Report recommending the introduction of Conditional Access Systems (CAS). He lamented the present state of consumer who has neither choice in selection of channels nor in deciding the rates and stressed that it was in the interests of the broadcasters to delay the introduction of CAS, since they would no longer be able to bundle their weak channels with the more popular channels.

Despite information and broadcasting minister Sushma Swaraj‘s assertion on 6 May that efforts will be made to bring in the Convergence Bill during the current session of Parliament, it is highly unlikely that the policy aiming to have a super regulator for the IT, broadcasting and telecom sectors will be introduced in Parliament before the current session comes to an end on May 16.
According to government sources, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT and telecom, headed by Communist Party of India‘s Member of Parliament, Somnath Chatterjee, is yet to submit its report on the Convergence Bill.

The Convergence Bill, aiming to have a policy framework for the convergence era, was referred to the Standing Committee last year to examine the various clauses after being introduced in Parliament.

If India gets to enact this piece of legislation, it would only be the second country in the world, after Malaysia, to have such a convergence policy in place.

"The last date for feedback/representation on the Convergence Bill was April 22 and the members are yet to examine the feedback clause by clause," a member of the Standing Committee said, pointing out that it is highly unlikely that the panel would finalise its observation in the form of a report before 16 May.

On 6 May, replying to supplementaries during question hour in the Rajya Sabha (Upper House), Swaraj had said the Convergence Bill provides for a panel to deliberate on contents of programmes to be shown on television. "The bill has been referred to a Parliamentary committee. We will try to bring it before 17 May," she had said.

But now with the member of the standing committee saying that the report has yet to be submitted Ms Swaraj and the industry will have to wait for a while - as has been happening for the past five years - for any major broadcasting regulation.

To another query, Swaraj had said the government is aware of some surrogate advertisements being shown on the small screen and moves were on to make advertisers accountable for their display.

The Union Cabinet gave the go-ahead to bring about amendments to The Cable TV Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 to allow the imposition of conditional access systems in India a few minutes ago by government regulation. The clearance came in the form of an "enabling provision", which means that the government can - if it chooses to - push ahead with CAS when it chooses to exercise that power. The Union Cabinet met today amidst speculation in the television trade that it would not be able to do so as a function in Parliament was keeping it busy. But the meeting was postponed to 7 pm and CAS was included in the agenda..

A time frame was not decided when CAS would be given the push by government, but a government official stated that he was hopeful that since the amendments have been cleared they should go to parliament in this session. "We are hopeful it will be passed by the House before it adjourns on 16 May." .

The go-ahead to CAS is going to cause a lot of heartburn amongst broadcasters, who have been opposing it, saying it has to be carried out in a proper manner. In fact, Star Asia boss James Murdoch had blasted the CAS initiative by the government, and had been making presentations to government against it, saying that broadcasters would lose even the minimum basic subscriptions revenues that they were generating from cable TV ops because of CAS.

Contrary to expectations the move to bring about amendments to cable TV regulations did not meet with much opposition from the cabinet. The Rakesh Mohan committee had also recommended that the rollout of CAS be done in a phased manner beginning with the metros first.

Ten Sports CEO Chris McDonald in a late night statement today denied that any negotiations were on between DD and Ten Sports for delayed telecasts of the FIFA World Cup.

Quoting the statement he said: "In order to allow as many households as possible in India to enjoy the World Cup soccer, Ten Sports had offered to DD to buy suitable time slots on the network as per their standard rate card. For reasons best known to them DD has rejected this offer."

Earlier in the day, a senior Prasar Bharati official had told indiantelevision.com that the pubcaster was considering whether Ten Sports should be "charged prime time telecast fee or the normal telecast fee for the time band when the soccer matches are telecast."

The Prasar Bharati official had also pointed out that DD has no other option but to telecast the soccer matches on a deferred basis as Ten Sports has claimed it has exclusive telecast rights for the India region.

Despite the telecast imbroglio, officials of Prasar Bharati, the corporation which oversees the working of DD and the All India Radio, feel that there would be viewership of the soccer matches on DD even on a deferred basis as Ten Sports‘ penetration still leaves much to be desired.