I&B ministry to tighten entry of TV channels

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is planning to put stringent entry-level restrictions on broadcasters launching new television channels.

The move is to ensure only serious players enter the business and have effective utilisation of the limited bandwidth available for broadcasting. A top ministry official said: "We have already asked the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to give its recommendations on the various criteria and conditions on the basis of which scarce resources will be given."

Currently, the country has over 500 TV channels. There are another 70 requests for new channels pending with the government. Another 50-60 channels have been given a licence but are not operational.

The ministry has asked Trai to review the existing norms and prepare the minimum criterion for granting permission, based on parameters like a higher net worth of the applicant than what is required currently and years of experience in broadcasting, amongst others. It will also put in conditions of commitment to run the channel for a certain number of years (which would protect against fly-by-night operators), amongst others.

At the moment, broadcasters can get permission to run a new channel if they have a net worth of a Rs 1 crore for operating one channel and Rs 3 crore for operating a bouquet of 15 channels. Trai has been asked to substantially increase the numbers to avoid fly-by-night operators getting into the business. The broadcasters also have to currently ensure they operate from India and the foreign direct investment is not more than 49 per cent (26 per cent in the case for a news channel). There are no other restrictions on them.

According to technical experts, given the frequency bandwidth in which the television broadcast is carried out (C-band), a maximum of 650-700 channels can be carried using the MPEG-2 compression technology. However, if the compression is upgraded to MPEG-4, almost half of existing bandwidth can be freed, which means more channels can be permitted.

Said a senior executive of a leading entertainment channel: "We expect the government to ease the entry norms and make the process even simpler. We are opposed to any stringent entry norms. Stringent norms will lead propagate corrupt practices."