MUMBAI: Television news broadcasters want ratings data weighing their performances to halt for a longer period of time as many of them negotiate to seal carriage deals with cable TV operators on their digital networks.

Living with something that has been a constant shadow of his life for years, the chief executive officer of a leading news organisation says that the weekly ratings released by TAM Media Research would not reflect an actual picture at this stage when their channels are yet to settle on digital cable TV.

?Several news broadcasters are yet to sign their carriage deals. Since the placement of the channels on the digital cable networks are not fixed and the EPG (electronic programme guide) is also not finalised, it will be unfair to have ratings during this period. There is a ?pick up? issue and for niche and news genres the margin of error in capturing true ratings can be wild,? says the executive on condition of anonymity.

Pouring their energies into persuading the government, the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) has managed to defer the release of ratings data for at least a few days. The Information and Broadcasting Ministry has called for a meeting, likely to be held on Friday, between the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), the NBA, Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA).

TAM, India?s sole TV audience measurement agency, was supposed to report on 19 December the data for the last nine weeks in a digitised environment. This would have for the first time captured the viewing trends after the four metros went cable digital on 1 November, something which the media agencies have been particularly waiting for as they decide on distributing advertising spends for their clients.

News broadcasters fear the ratings would go against them in this fluid situation when many of them have not sorted out the distribution of their channels and the set-top box (STB) deployment has behaved erratically in the four metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai that fell under digitisation in the first phase.

?Even seeding the STBs took time. It may have picked up faster in Delhi and Mumbai, but Kolkata was nowhere in the scene in the initial days. Chennai is still bad. And ideally the EPG should have been in place by 1 November. The data can be accurate when things stabilise first,? says a senior executive working in a TV news outfit.

Kolkata has made progress and the I&B ministry has cracked the whip for switching off of all analogue television signals in the West Bengal state capital by 27 December. Chennai is the only city still to go digital as the Madras High Court is hearing a petition filed by associations of cable operators. The court has scheduled a hearing in the last week of this month.

Another issue of worry is that while some news broadcasters (particularly those who are part of larger networks who have entertainment channels in their product portfolio) have concluded their carriage deals, the others who are still negotiating with the multi-system operators (MSOs) will be under tremendous pressure if the ratings data steps out of the doorstep of TAM.

?There is still an imbalance for those whose carriage deals are pending. For the news genre which has a small share in the overall TV viewing universe, this state of flux can be very harmful,? says the head of distribution at a news company who is yet to finalise carriage deals with some MSOs.

Already reeling under pressure to up their revenues, news broadcasters do not want media agencies to further dictate terms. ?We need more time for things to settle,? says the CEO of a news network.

There is a bigger worry for the TV news outlets. For correcting their business models, they need their ballooning carriage payouts to shrink. They fear that the "pre-mature" release of ratings data at this stage will reduce their bargaining power with the MSOs they are in discussions with for fixing the carriage amounts.

With all these anxieties in mind, it is no surprise that news broadcasters have found new energy in their campaign against the immediate release of ratings data by TAM. But it remains to be seen how long the broadcasting community will unite to stick to this common purpose. Entertainment networks, who spend big budgets on their programming, will need to know how their shows have been accepted among their audiences and, more importantly, they need to tell this to the media agencies for getting the right ad rates.

?The way out is to allow ratings data to flow in across other genres except news. At least for some more time,? says a news channel ad sales executive.

NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has been asked by the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry to examine whether central or state governments and their entities can enter the television broadcasting and distribution sectors.

Even as the Government has always held the view that central and state governments should not be allowed to enter this arena, the latest action appears to have been triggered by demands from the West Bengal and Tamil Nadu governments to set up their own television channels. The Ministry also admitted that it had received similar requests from other entities of the central government.

The issue of granting permission to state governments or its organs to run Cable TV Networks has been drawing attention of the ministry from time to time particularly with reference to the TRAI recommendations restricting such entities from entering into broadcasting and distribution activities.

The Ministry has therefore sought the views of TRAI regarding the entry in the broadcaster sector of central government ministries and departments / central government-owned companies / central government undertakings / joint venture of the central government and the private sector / central government funded entities; and state government departments/ state government-owned companies / state government undertakings / joint venture of the state government and the private sector / state government funded entities.

TRAI in its recommendations on ?Issues relating to entry of certain entities into Broadcasting and Distribution activities? dated 12 November 2008 was of the view that the state government and their organs may not be permitted to enter into broadcasting and distribution activities.

Under the policy guidelines for uplinking and downlinking of television channels, an applicant seeking permission to set up an uplinking hub / Teleport or uplink/downlink a TV Channel should be a company registered in India under the Companies Act 1956 irrespective of its management control.

The move assumes significance in view of significant growth in the broadcasting sector at a time when the number of TV channels and cable connections in India have grown exponentially.

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