NEW DELHI: Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Secretary Uday Kumar Varma feels that the Indian media industry needs to introspect on the current models of self-regulation while emphasising that the government had no intention of placing any controls on the freedom of the press.

Giving a keynote address at the News Television Summit organised by Indiantelevision.com, Varma stressed that India was the only country in the world without a statutory regulatory authority.

While stressing that the government had no intention of imposing any statutory regulation on the media, Varma stated that media must do some introspection on its own ?sooner than later?.

Referring to digitisation, he said, the introduction of digital addressable systems (Das) was the largest single initiative taken by the country for the past few years.

Das will bring transparency and will necessarily force a paradigm shift with television channels working on newer revenue models, apart from working out on new content for the consumers, Varma said.

He also claimed that in the first phase of Das, both Delhi and Mumbai had gone digital de jure and de facto, while Kolkata had gone digital de jure. In Chennai, complete digitisation eluded the government because of a stay order from the Madras High Court.

He was confident that the TV channels along with the consumer will see the benefits of digitisation in the near future, but said state governments will also have to play a role in helping multi-system operators.

News television channels, he was confident, will become more sustainable and purposeful with digitisation as it will help in developing new revenue.

On the phase II of DAS, he said that 28 of the thirty-eight cities had already achieved over 50 per cent digitisation and four were fully digitised.

He said another major game-changer will be the auction of 839 FM radio channels in Phase III, cleared by the Empowered Group of Ministers recently.

Answering a question about permitting news on community and FM Radio, Varma said that the government is only restricting political news because it was difficult to monitor the large number of radio channels in the country.

However, the government had already decided to permit the FM channels to take all India radio news bulletins and this may be extended to community radio as well.

"We are just being prudent at present, but we are not ruling out permitting news bulletins in the future," he said.

He also said that India was working towards becoming a digital teleport hub and the government was taking steps to facilitate this transformation.

Indiantelevision.com Group CEO and Editor-in-Chief Anil Wanvari in his opening note lauded the decision to go digital but said the industry is struggling against various odds. He also said that ad regulation by Trai will only add to the woes of the television industry which has not been witnessing robust growth in the last few years.

MUMBAI: Europe?s leading sports marketing group, Sportfive International, will continue to serve as the International Basketball Association?s (Fiba) exclusive media rights partner for four more years till 2015.

The deal will see the agency continue to market Fiba?s major rights in Asia, excluding Japan and the pan-Arab region. Fiba had first partnered with Sportfive in 2007.

The period will include the 2013 Fiba Asia Championship in the Philippines, the 2013 Fiba Asia Women?s Championship in Thailand, the 2014 Fiba Basketball World Cup in Spain, the 2014 Fiba Women?s World Championship in Turkey, and in 2015 the Fiba Asia Championships for men and women with the host countries to be announced soon.
 
?We are very pleased to continue our partnership with Fiba. It has been a successful and enjoyable collaboration so far and we are continuing our work to further strengthen this relationship. We hope that this renewal will become just one of many projects as we move forward this year and develop new basketball opportunities," said Sportfive International chief executive Shaila-Ann Rao.

NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Friday called for views from stakeholders on various restrictions put forth on ownership of media, including on powers to the government to prevent any entity from entering the media sector in public interest.

In its second consultation paper on media ownership, Trai has also asked stakeholders to give their views if there are any entities which need to be precluded from owning media enterprises, in addition to political parties, religious bodies, government or government-aided bodies which have already been recommended by the regulator to be disqualified from entry into the broadcasting and distribution sectors.

The discussion paper has listed out 32 issues on which it wants stakeholders to give their views, including on ownership rules for vertical integration between broadcasting and distribution entities.

The paper has also sought views on what should be the rules/restrictions in case of mergers and acquisitions in the media sector, and media ownership rules within and across media segments.

The paper has been placed on the TRAI website and written comments invited from stakeholders by 8 March and counter-comments if any by 15 March.

It has also sought views on what methodology to be adopted to measure ownership or control of an entity over a media outlet, identification of genres to be considered while framing media ownership rules, and prescribing norms for mandatory disclosures by media entities.

Trai also wants discussion on issues relating to identification of media segments wherein media ownership rules are to be prescribed, and identification of relevant markets for evaluating various parameters to be used for devising ownership rules and the methodology for measuring these parameters.

The paper had been issued at the request of the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry made last year following a report of the Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad.

Trai said it was felt that reasonable restrictions may need to be put in place on ownership in the media sector, to ensure media pluralism and to counter the ills of monopolies. It pointed out that such restrictions do exist in many international markets.

However, media ownership rules, Trai said, should be so designed to strike a balance between ensuring a degree of plurality of media sources and content, and a level playing field for companies operating in the media sector, and providing freedom to companies to expand, innovate and invest.

Trai had prepared a similar paper in 2008, but the Ministry felt that the situation had undergone a sea-change since then.

MUMBAI: The Indian Merchants? Chamber is organising the second edition of its Sports, Media and Entertainment conference ?IMC Fusion? on 16 February at Grand Hyatt in Santa Cruz, Mumbai.

The conference is being organised under the auspices of IMC?s Entertainment Committee chaired by Karan Johar. Kabir Bedi will be the Host of Fusion 2013.

This year ?IMC Fusion? will feature discussions on the following subjects: 21st Century Entertainment: Talent Creation & Challenges of Nurturing & Mentoring, Hyper Channelization and The New Entertainment Landscape: Apps, Social Media, You Tube, Gaming and Commerce, The Brewing Content Battle: Who is Transforming Content and Consumer Experience for the Better?, Women in Cinema & Entertainment: New Realities & Challenges, Reality Shows on TV: Beyond Entertainment & Voyeurism, and Script is the Star: Can it also deliver Rs 100 Cr at the Box-office?.

The nine-part series is a part of Discovery?s block ?Ultimate Discovery? and starts tonight 11 February at 9 pm. Episodes begin with impromptu tricks captured by hidden cameras and culminate in full-scale, elaborate stunts in a melding of magic and science. The result is a blending of theatrical exhibition and empirical principles, bolstered by the before and after reactions of the audience.

The show looks to elevate the purely entertaining aspect of magic to new heights by proposing seemingly impossible endeavours, executing them flawlessly, and ultimately disclosing the scientific reality as the featured magicians, Canadian female, Billy Kidd, American Wayne Houchin, Briton Ben Hanlin and Australian James Galea explore the physics, chemistry, biology and a little pure Einstein that make illusions possible. The magicians are filmed in New York, London, and Warsaw with the help of both hidden and open cameras for the largest possible impact.

Commenting on Fusion 2013, IMC President Niranjan Hiranandani said, "This year the conference gets bigger in scope and scale. There will be dedicated B2B exhibition space that will provide a platform for product and service providers from the connected industry to interact with the right target group in a productive environment."

Key issues identified during the Fusion 2013 conference together with suggestions and outcomes from different sessions will be collated for taking up at appropriate levels.