Licensing norms for FM radio soon

May look into ownership structure of cable operators

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) will come out with policy guidelines for FM radio licensing within four weeks. Also, the government will look at implementing a Trai recommendation on curbing monopolies in cable TV networks across the country.

“Trai has said it will come out with a policy on FM radio licensing in a few weeks, and a decision on DTH licensing soon. It has also said it may look into the ownership of politicians and non-media corporates in media, if the I&B ministry asks it to,” said an official.

After a meeting of officials from the ministry of information and Broadcasting (I&B) with officials from companies in the sector, it was said the telecom authority would look at the price cap fixed for channels in India. Trai is also expected to come out with a policy on direct-to-home (DTH) licensing and one on content aggregators in two-four weeks.

At the meeting, the government was represented by I&B Minister Manish Tewari and the secretary and joint secretary in the ministry, among others, while representatives of the broadcasting sector included Uday Shankar, chief executive of STAR India; and Harit Nagpal, chief executive of Tata Sky. It is also expected Trai will take a decision on pricing channels soon after broadcasters seek a revision in this regard.

Experts say the ministry might not be able to roll out the FM auctions soon, as the model code of conduct was expected to be in place.

The government is considering hastening nods for 245 new channels awaiting clearances from the home ministry. Earlier this month, the I&B ministry had approved the licences of 70 new multi-system operators.

Last week, the ministry had approved a new policy to regulate television ratings. “Television rating agencies will now have to register with the ministry within a month and comply with the ownership pattern, according to which companies can’t hold more than 10 per cent in both rating agencies and broadcasters or advertising agencies,” the ministry had said earlier. Manish Tewari said there was a need to fix surrogate political ownership in the broadcast distribution segment. On the digitisation programme, he said, “We thought we would give it a pause, but we will go ahead with it. We need to ensure customers get what they are supposed to.”

Before rolling out the third and fourth phases of the government’s nationwide digitisation programme, expected to be completed by December this year, the ministry is assessing the impact of the first two phases.

The ministry is in talks with various stakeholders to decide on a policy on allowing news programmes on private FM channels. It is ready to e-auction 849 radio licences. Last week, Bimal Julka, secretary in the ministry, had told Business Standard, “We are currently considering it…we will soon have the e-auction of new licences in FM radio.”

On the security clearance to broadcasters, Julka said the I&B ministry had already written to the home ministry to fix the tenure of the clearance at 10 years, against the home ministry’s proposal of three years.

Broadcasters in the country had raised concerns after the home ministry decided to fix the tenure of security clearance for 3 years.India is currently in the midst of a nationwide digitisation program and the ministry is currently in the midst of assessing the impact of the first two phases before rolling out the third and fourth phase of digitisation, which is expected to be completed by December 2014.