Don'T Ban Foreign Television Channels, Regulate Them

The opinion poll was conducted by Cable Waves, the newsletter of the Indian television industry. It was carried out last weekend among 1,023 adults of voting age spread across the four cities; about half the respondents were women.

Of the four cities, Calcutta proved to be the one most strongly opposed to foreign television channels being given unregulated access to Indian skies. In contrast, almost 50 per cent of the respondents in Mumbai were in favour of access to foreign channels without any regulation.

Seven years after the advent of satellite television in India, the impact of international channels is obvious, with about half the people taking part in the opinion poll saying that the amount of television they watch will be reduced if there are no foreign channels available. This is despite the fact that more than half the respondents feel that foreign television channels are harmful to Indian culture, though this number goes down significantly, to 26 per cent, in Bangalore.

Asked about the proposal in the Broadcasting Bill to restrict the print media to 20 per cent ownership in broadcasting, 63 per cent of the participants in the opinion poll said that newspapers should not be restricted in any way from entry into the electronic media. This figure would go up to 70 per cent if one ignored Bangalore, where 44.5 per cent of the respondents felt that there should be no restriction on newspapers entering television. About 10 per cent of the respondents chose not to express any opinion on this issue.

More than three fourths of the respondents believed that newspapers were better equipped than other companies to run television channels. Even among those who felt that there should be a restriction on newspapers entering the television business, 66 per cent agreed that newspapers were in a better position to run channels.