Star Tv Planning Live Telecast Of April 11 Session

Star TV is contemplating a live telecast of the Parliament session on April 11.

According to telecommunications ministry sources, Star TV has requested for satellite time from Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) to facilitate the live coverage of Parliament proceedings. Since uplinking by private parties is not allowed, Star would be taking the signals generated by Doordarshan.

The session would be aired on Star Plus, which has also lined up special news and current affairs-related programmes on April 11, including 'Spotlight, anchored by Rajat Sharma.

A final decision is yet to be taken as the political situation is very fluid and nobody, including DD, knows what will be the exact situation on April 11, Star TV executives told Business Standard yesterday.

The live telecast is likely to be a costly affair. VSNL charges for an hours satellite time come to around Rs 30,000 . The telecast fee which Star will pay to DD has still not been decided. Doordarshan had demanded $75,000 from private satellite channels for budget-related programmes beamed on DD on February 28.

Later, DD settled for approximately $20,000 for the live feed of Chidambarams budget speech, which was made available to Star TV. Zee TV took the whole Budget-package from DD for a little more.

Contacted by Business Standard, senior information and broadcasting ministry officials said they were yet to receive formal requests from Star or any other private channel for the live telecast of the April 11 Parliament session. The final decision on the coverage of the Parliament sessions is yet to be taken by the Speaker.

If the Parliament session is held on April 11, then Spotlight will be aired on Star Plus from 11 pm to midnight. If not, the programme will be beamed around 10.30 pm.

Spotlight would look at various issues arising out of the present political crisis through a studio-based discussion with leaders and politicians.

Instead of just highlighting the issues and problems, the programme will also attempt to analyse what can be done in future to avoid such happenings and what is the agenda before the nation.