NEW DELHI: The government is speeding up its views on the recommendation of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) that the government and its entities should not enter television broadcasting and distribution. The Information & Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry has set up an inter-ministerial committee to examine all reports received from Trai relating to television broadcasting services before the appropriate authority in the government takes policy decisions.

The committee, chaired by the additional secretary in the I&B Ministry, will have representatives from the Departments of Information Technology, Telecommunications, Economic Affairs, and Industrial Policy and Promotion apart from a few experts. The representatives from these departments will not be below the rank of a joint secretary.

The two joint secretaries (Broadcasting) in the I&B Ministry will serve as member secretaries depending on the subject being taken up by the committee.

The experts included in the committee are: chairman and managing director of the Broadcasting Engineering Consultants India Ltd, the Director-Generals of Doordarshan and All India Radio, and the Engineers-in-Chief of Doordarshan (DD) and All India Radio (AIR).

An I&B Ministry notice says the Committee may co-opt any number of experts considered necessary from time to time.

Recommendations of the committee on Trai?s reports relating to television broadcasting services would be communicated to the I&B secretary and thereafter, to the I&B Minister for further instructions.

Ministry sources told indiantelevision.com that first on the agenda of the committee will be the latest report of Trai that says central government, state governments, their entities or their joint ventures should not be allowed into broadcasting and distribution services.

The I&B Ministry is also preparing to seek opinion of Trai on surrogate ownership by political parties or politicians.

The earlier recommendation by Trai in 2008 that the government entities should not be allowed in distribution or broadcasting space was gathering dust. Now there seems to be a certain seriousness, evident from the fact that Tamil Nadu state-owned Arasu Cable TV Corp. Ltd. is yet to get a DAS (digital addressable system) licence. Arasu was earlier granted a licence for cable TV operations but with a caveat that it was conditional and depended on the government taking a final view on Trai recommendations.

Trai?s fresh recommendations will now be under the consideration of the inter-ministerial committee before the government lends its final approval. The issue gathers importance as several state governments have expressed intent to enter into the television broadcasting space.

NEW DELHI: All India Radio (AIR) does not have any FM station in 160 of the cities included in the Phase III FM radio license auctions. In Phase III, auctions for a total of 839 FM radio channels in 294 cities will be conducted.

According to the ?Poised for Growth: FM radio in India? study by Confederation of Indian Industry and Ernst & Young, Prasar Bharati proposes to provide FM transmitters with programme production facilities in 20 of these cities.

This scheme has been proposed in the Twelfth Plan, subject to availability of funds. Consequently, AIR FM Radio requires more than 500 transmitters to increase its coverage to more than 80 per cent of the country.

AIR stations broadcast from 267 transmitters that are installed at 246 places across India, and its FM stations reach around 42 per cent of India?s population.

Furthermore, 248 new FM transmitters are being installed in the country under various schemes approved under the Eleventh Five Year Plan to further augment AIR?s FM terrestrial coverage.

AIR is expected to reach around 54 per cent of India?s population on implementation of this project.

In the Phase III, auctions for a total of 839 FM radio channels in 294 cities will be conducted.

Referring to the role All India Radio can play, the report says community radio stations should be provided content relating to local welfare programmes by the pubcaster and the local government to spread awareness of this.

AIR or media institutes need to conduct training courses to build a pool of skilled people who are competent to operate radio stations. Roll out of FM Phase III will also require a large number of professionals.

Meanwhile, the report says two-thirds of the persons surveyed by it feel that permission to broadcast AIR news bulletins subject to conditions and other non-news content will increase listenership and stickiness.

But the report suggests that there is need to provide flexibility in news generation and dissemination, as has been permitted to television channels and internet media, with the requisite guidelines and monitoring mechanisms.

MUMBAI: The government earned Rs 6.70 billion of revenues in the seven months ended 31 October from television channels including Doordarshan.

Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry sources said a major share of the revenue had come as fee from the private TV channels.

The government earned Rs 1.74 billion from private FM channels and All India Radio (AIR) during this seven-month period, a source said.

In 2011-12, the revenue from television channels for the government was Rs 11.55 billion, four per cent more than Rs 11.12 billion in 2010-11. In 2009-10, it was Rs 10.07 billion.

The total revenue earned by the government from television channels from April 2009 to October 2012 amounted to Rs 39.45 billion.

The government?s income from radio channels in the previous year ended 31 March 2012 stood at Rs 3.57 billion, 2.5 per cent more than Rs 3.48 billion in 2010-11. In 2009-10, the revenue from radio channels was Rs 3 billion.

The total revenue earned from radio channels since April 2009 amounts to Rs 11.8 billion.

Meanwhile, the ministry sources said AIR has been making sustained efforts to increase its revenue. This includes changing its fixed point chart at regular intervals to include popular programmes so as to attract more advertisements and commercials, and broadcasting more interactive, customised and channel driving programmes.

An effort is also being made by AIR to have dedicated time slots for specific target audiences like women and children, youth, rural communities, music lovers, industrial workers, and farmers. Transmission hours too have been extended in some cases to accommodate commercials and radio is entering into more media partnerships to brand AIR.

The programme pattern of AIR stations ? particularly FM channels ? has been changed and made more listener-friendly to attract more buyers from the corporate sectors, and frequent audience research surveys are being undertaken to understand the views of the listeners.

However, the ministry sources made it clear that AIR was a public service broadcaster and, therefore, the aim was not to compete with other electronic media.

NEW DELHI: Prasar Bharati is striving to bridge the gap between its annual expenditure and revenue amid government pressures to lean less on it for financial support.

While the government has made it clear that it will only fund the capex requirements and expenses towards salaries, the pubcaster has settled on an operational expenditure capped at Rs 20 billion for the fiscal while its income hovers in the region of Rs 16 billion as it competes against private television and radio broadcasters.

So how does Prasar Bharati cut its financial coat to match the cloth that it has? The pubcaster, which has to look after Doordarshan and All India Radio (AIR), is banking on generating additional revenue of Rs 4 billion with aggressive marketing to promote its clutch of channels and radio stations.

The government had last month approved the financial restructuring of Prasar Bharati, stating that from this year the public broadcaster would have to ensure its operating expenses, other than salaries, are met from revenue earnings. The government had agreed to meet all the expenses of Prasar Bharati towards salary and salary-related expenses from its non-plan account for five years from 2012-13 to 2016-17.

Says Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar, "After the Union Cabinet decision, Prasar Bharati?s annual operational expenditure would be in the range of Rs 15 billion to 20 billion, whereas the annual revenue currently is around Rs 16 billion. Therefore, we need to generate additional revenue of Rs 3.5 billion to Rs 4 billion and that is where our renewed emphasis on marketing is important."

Prasar Bharati has decided on an aggressive marketing policy to promote the advertisement revenue and viewership/listenership of Doordarshan and AIR that is expected to bring in an additional Rs 4 billion every year.

Rejuvenated by the recent Cabinet decision providing the pubcaster financial relief of Rs 120 billion after the recommendations of a Group of Ministers, Doordarshan and AIR have decided that marketing and revenue would be their two thrust areas. Prasar Bharati has also put special emphasis on different revenue streams and innovative methods for garnering additional income.

With the Cabinet also approving the transfer of numerous properties and infrastructure across the country - radio stations, television kendras, transmitters - to Prasar Bharati, the pubcaster has decided to leverage these new assets to earn more money.

The Prasar Bharati board, thus, unanimously approved Sircar?s proposal to hire professional marketing executives at market salary levels in order to help the public broadcaster come up with innovative revenue generation plans.

Prasar Bharati board unanimously passed a special resolution to thank Information and Broadcasing Minister Ambika Soni and Finance Minister P Chidambaram for the waiver of Rs 120.71 billion of loans, interest thereon and satellite charges that had accumulated over the years.

The waiver will help Prasar Bharati to pay greater attention to other areas of concern, including the free to air direct-to-home DD Direct Plus, technology (including new media), and its priceless archival treasures, according to Prasar Bharati officials.