NEW DELHI: The government is speeding up its views on the recommendation of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) that the government and its entities should not enter television broadcasting and distribution. The Information & Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry has set up an inter-ministerial committee to examine all reports received from Trai relating to television broadcasting services before the appropriate authority in the government takes policy decisions.

The committee, chaired by the additional secretary in the I&B Ministry, will have representatives from the Departments of Information Technology, Telecommunications, Economic Affairs, and Industrial Policy and Promotion apart from a few experts. The representatives from these departments will not be below the rank of a joint secretary.

The two joint secretaries (Broadcasting) in the I&B Ministry will serve as member secretaries depending on the subject being taken up by the committee.

The experts included in the committee are: chairman and managing director of the Broadcasting Engineering Consultants India Ltd, the Director-Generals of Doordarshan and All India Radio, and the Engineers-in-Chief of Doordarshan (DD) and All India Radio (AIR).

An I&B Ministry notice says the Committee may co-opt any number of experts considered necessary from time to time.

Recommendations of the committee on Trai?s reports relating to television broadcasting services would be communicated to the I&B secretary and thereafter, to the I&B Minister for further instructions.

Ministry sources told indiantelevision.com that first on the agenda of the committee will be the latest report of Trai that says central government, state governments, their entities or their joint ventures should not be allowed into broadcasting and distribution services.

The I&B Ministry is also preparing to seek opinion of Trai on surrogate ownership by political parties or politicians.

The earlier recommendation by Trai in 2008 that the government entities should not be allowed in distribution or broadcasting space was gathering dust. Now there seems to be a certain seriousness, evident from the fact that Tamil Nadu state-owned Arasu Cable TV Corp. Ltd. is yet to get a DAS (digital addressable system) licence. Arasu was earlier granted a licence for cable TV operations but with a caveat that it was conditional and depended on the government taking a final view on Trai recommendations.

Trai?s fresh recommendations will now be under the consideration of the inter-ministerial committee before the government lends its final approval. The issue gathers importance as several state governments have expressed intent to enter into the television broadcasting space.

NEW DELHI: The transmission of All India Radio FM channels in the capital which was disrupted following a fire at the Pitampura Tower over the weekend has been normalised.

AIR Director General L D Mandloi said that two new transmitters which had begun functioning had helped in fully restoring the services of AIR FM Gold (106.4) and AIR Rainbow (102.6) channels.

AIR sources said that Gyan Vani FM and the services of three private FM channels Radio City, Red FM and Radio Mirchi will be fully restored by late this evening.

Other private FM channels like Big FM and Oye FM operate from a different transmitter and their services have continued uninterrupted, the sources added.

The fire broke out at 200 meter high television tower in Pitampura area of North - West Delhi on Saturday night. It was brought under control after about two hours with the help of fifteen fire tenders.

However, the cables which connect the transmitters to the aerials were badly damaged affecting the transmission services.

Terrestrial transmission of Doordarshan is also expected to be fully restored by this evening, though DD engineering in chief R K Sinha said that it has been partly restored by yesterday.

NEW DELHI: Public broadcaster Doordarshan has not managed to boost its overall revenues this financial year despite having done well during the 2012 Olympics in London and getting to simulcast popular shows produced by private broadcasters.

Even the state assembly elections failed to pump up the revenues of Doordarshan as it posted an almost flat-line revenue growth.

In the seven months ended 31 October, Doordarshan?s revenues totalled Rs 5.77 billion. The average monthly revenue is at the same level as in the previous year. In the six months ended 30 September 2011, the public broadcasters? revenues were Rs 4.89 billion.

Doordarshan?s failure to improve its revenues in a year when it telecast properties with high income potential shows the urgent need for revamping its sales and marketing efforts. It had simulcast the highly popular Star Plus show Satyamev Jayate hosted by actor Aamir Khan, newly-produced mythological serial Ramayana by Zee and youth channel MTV?s Coke Studio.

Prasar Bharati, which runs a slew of Doordarshan television channels and All India Radio (AIR), needs to enhance its revenues as the government has from this year decided to fund only the capital expenditure and expenses towards salaries. The remaining operational expenditure will have to be met by Prasar Bharati from its own revenue generation.

Prasar Bharati needs to generate additional revenues of Rs 3.5 billion to Rs 4 billion to be able to meet its operational expenditure, excluding salaries, which would be in the region of Rs 20 billion. A large part of the additional revenue generation is expected from Doordarshan.

Prasar Bharati?s higher revenue generation plans include aggressive marketing of advertising slots, putting to use spare infrastructure, bringing about an improvement in content, augmenting DTH services and sharing of towers. The plan also includes efforts at increasing viewership of Doordarshan and listenership of AIR.

The Prasar Bharati board has unanimously approved Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar?s proposal to hire professional marketing executives at market salary levels to help the public broadcaster come up with innovative revenue generation plans.

Doordarshan?s revenues were Rs 9.90 billion in 2011-12, Rs 9.44 billion in 2010-11 and Rs 8.28 billion in 2009-10. Its total expenditure in the first seven months of this year was Rs 9.90 billion.

Doordarshan?s total expenditure in 2009-10 was Rs 14.21 billion, in 2010-11 Rs 14.69 billion, and in 2011-12 Rs 19.10 billion.

Doordarshan?s expenditure in the current year so far has been higher due to the impact of the Sixth Central Pay Commission recommendations. In addition, an amount of Rs 1.6 billion was paid this year as accumulated arrears of service tax pertaining to the period from 2003 to 2007.

Information and Broadcasting minister Manish Tewari said under the financial restructuring plan recommended by the Group of Ministers attached to Prasar Bharati and accepted by the cabinet, 100 per cent expenses towards salary and salary related establishment expenses during the next five years from 2012-13 to 2016-17 will be met by the government while all other items of operating expenses are to be borne by Prasar Bharati itself.

The capital loans provided to Prasar Bharati are to be converted into grants-in-aid, and Plan Capital support in future will be provided by the Government in the form of grants-in-aid.

Accumulated interests on the loan-in perpetuity amounting to Rs 2.98 billion and accumulated interests on capital loans and penal interest thereon amounting to Rs 1.10 billion will also be waived.

The accumulated arrears of space segment and spectrum charges of Prasar Bharati up to 31 March 2011 amounting to Rs 1.34954 billion too are being waived.

MUMBAI: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has received 750 complaints of paid news during the state assembly elections in the current year, Information & Broadcasting minister Manish Tewari said.

In comparison, the ECI had received 155 complaints of paid news during the state assembly elections last year.
Tewari also informed that the Press Council of India (PCI) has received nine complaints of paid news this year compared to 17 in the previous.

"The Press Council of India (PCI), an autonomous body to maintain and improve the standards of press, received 17 complaints of paid news in the year 2009-10, two complaints in the year 2010-11 and 11 complaints in 2011-12 and nine complaints till date in the current year," Tewari said in a statement laid in the Lok Sabha.

In response to another question, Tewari told the Lok Sabha that Doordarshan had earned Rs 865.7 million from the auction of slots on its direct-to-home (DTH) platform to free-to-air channels in the year 2011-12.

NEW DELHI: Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Minister Manish Tewari has assured employees of Prasar Bharati of early redressal of their grievances including long-pending promotions.

During his first visit to All India Radio, Doordarshan and the Prasar Bharati headquarters after becoming the Minister on Wednesday, Tewari was assured by Prasar Bharati chief executive officer Jawhar Sircar that the recruitment rules for most cadres were ready and promotions would be granted shortly.

Sircar said the government?s decision bear the expenditure on salaries of most employees and the recent financial concessions announced following the recommendations of a Group of Ministers had greatly helped the pubcaster in initiating new programmes.

The Minister was apprised about the functioning of AIR and DD and the broadcaster?s immediate plans for expansion.

The minister assured the employees that they were free to approach him directly whenever they had any problems.