NEW DELHI: The permission for uplinking or downlinking given to five television channels has lapsed as they failed to operationalise within the stipulated period of one year.

These channels are: Mallemala, S1 Tadka, Just TV Punjabi, Just TV Music, and Ahimsaa.

The Information and Broadcasting Ministry had found 37 channels failed to become operational even after one year of permission. Apart from the five whose licences lapsed, three had requested for extension of time against notice of cancellation, and 27 TV channels had sought extension for operationalising their channels and they have been asked to submit Performance Bank Guarantee. The permission of two channels has been withdrawn at the request of the concerned companies.

Meanwhile, the government has given permission so far to 833 satellite TV channels to uplink or downlink into the country.

According to the government, 681 television channels were operational in the country in April this year, out of a total of 825 television channels which had been permitted by the government as on 19 January 2012.

A total of 116 channels are still within the prescribed limit of one year for operationalisation under the Uplinking/Downlinking Guidelines.

The country had 430 news and current affairs channels as on 17 November last year including 35 channels of the national broadcaster, Doordarshan.

NEW DELHI: Indian radio stations, which do not hold the rights to the Olympic coverage will not broadcast or originate play-by-play commentary or analogous coverage of any Olympic material, whether on a live or delayed basis.

Meanwhile, actual commentary of competition events, taped from the television coverage of the rights holder for the Olympics Games in the particular territory can only be used with the express written permission of the rights holder as per the Radio News Access Rules.

The rules also say that non-rights holders shall not broadcast any other material obtained while inside an Olympic venue, including interviews. However the official press conferences held in the main press centre can be covered as long as there is a delay of 30 minutes from the conclusion of the press conference. From India, All India Radio is the only audio station to have the rights for broadcasting live commentary of the Games and events linked to them.

Furthermore, no private channel in the country is at present permitted to broadcast news, though some FM channels occasionally give short highlights.

The Access Rules are clear that Olympic material may be used only as a part of regularly scheduled daily news programs of which the actual news element constitutes the main feature. News programmes shall not be positioned or promoted as Olympic programmes.

Non-Rights Holders, provided they are holders of ENR accreditation, will have access, without equipment, to Olympic venues and, with equipment, to the main press centre.

Specifically, mobile telephone interviews with athletes and team officials are strictly prohibited from Olympic venues, including mixed zones. ENR accredited journalists are not permitted to do telephone voice reports from Olympic venues, including the Olympic Park Common Domain.

AIR will broadcast the opening and closing ceremonies of the London Olympics 2102 live on its national channel as well as on AIR FM Gold (106.4 MHz) on 27 July and 13 August respectively.

In addition, the matches relating to hockey where India has qualified and football will also be broadcast live along with the semi-finals and finals.

AIR sources told Indiantelevision.com the public broadcaster has drawn up extensive plans to give live telecast of the women?s hockey final and the men?s football final.

Though these will be carried on the national channel and FM Gold, all state capital Kendras can also relay the beam.

FM Gold will carry highlights of the previous day?s events at 7.05 am every morning. These will be picked up and relayed by all the capital Kendras and also presented later in regional language versions.

AIR will also carry regular updates and breaking news during normal programme whenever any major story breaks.

There will be elaborate news coverage with inputs and feeds from London, the sources said.

AIR had in fact commenced programmes on the Olympics from 10 April, beaming two programme every month till June and one in July. This was also relayed by the Kendras in state capitals and in regional versions. This also included interviews with those Indians who have earlier won medals at the Olympics.

Also Read: Olympics coverage norms upset news channels

MUMBAI: For all the talk of the death of linear television, 95 per cent of all television programmes watched in 2012 will be live or within a day of the original broadcast.

Even the advent of social networks has enhanced, rather than diminished, the schedule?s appeal as commentary on programmes has expanded from the living room to a community.

Conventional broadcasters need to build on this power and show advertisers the advantages of the schedule and building campaigns within the context of a schedule. While things will have changed half a century from now, when RTE reaches its 100 year anniversary, the schedule is still king in 2012.

In its 2012 report, Deloitte?s Technology Media & Telecommunications (TMT) Industry Group has stated about the rise of the multi-tablet owner: The tablet explosion has shown little sign of slowing down since the format hit the market in 2010 and it is set to take the mantle of the most rapid ?multi-anything? market penetration in history. Roughly five million tablets will be sold to people that already owned one in 2012 generating up to $2 billion in revenue.

However the tablet market will diversify around size, processing power, price and operating system in 2012 as was the case with smart phones. Corporations are also likely to require tablets with greater security and ruggedness.

That presents a challenge for content owners, network operators and retailers that need to prepare to respond to the rise in the multi-tablet household. In Ireland, CIOs will be cognisant of the fact that their organisations cannot afford to lose pace with disruptive innovations such as mobile and tablet computing or they risk losing pace with their customers.

Big data becomes a big deal : Globally, interest in big data, although in its infancy is set to grow in 2012 which will see 90 per cent of Fortune 500 companies kick off a big data initiative, triggering industry revenue of between $1 billion and 1.5 billion.

Internet companies have led the way with exploring big data but fast follower sectors are likely to include the public sector, financial services, retail, entertainment and media. Increasing levels of online activity and social interactions are one of the developments driving the emergence of the ?big data? market.

As data volumes grow exponentially, traditional database technologies struggle to generate timely insights. In the Irish context, few organisations currently have the data volumes to justify ?big data? initiatives, and few organisations have maximised the insight from transactional databases.

Deloitte suggests that, as big data continues to evolve, the majority of Irish organisations should focus on the effective use of existing transactional data to drive decision-making before looking to the opportunities that ?big data? opens in terms of insight from unstructured information and real-time insight.

MUMBAI: In a bid to attract foreign investments, the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA) has simplified its industry funding schemes from 46 to five.

The MDA Grant Schemes, which seek to position the media industry for the future, are a result of a series of consultations with the industry from the start of the year.

The Schemes also seek to meet the evolving needs of the industry at five key stages of growth from ideation, production, marketing, talent up-skilling to enterprise development.

The MDA Grant Schemes are applicable to all seven sectors of the media industry: Broadcast, Animation, Film, Music, Interactive Media, Games and Publishing.

Funding is in the form of grants, which encourages media companies and individuals to own and more fully capitalise on the Intellectual Property of their product, service or solution, and to do so across different media platforms as well.

A total of S$88m has been set aside for the five schemes. Existing projects under the 46 schemes will continue to be serviced to completion.