Broadcast brouhaha

     Ashish Sinha.

Courtesy:www.in.news.yahoo.com

                      Makeover is the new buzzword among the staid mandarins at Shastri Bhavan. The information and broadcasting ministry (I&B) is all set to spend around Rs 1,500 crore in the next three years to make Doordarshan and All India Radio (AIR) digital and provide a competitive edge to Prasar Bharati. AIR's FM and medium wave channel network is to be revamped to make the public broadcaster more competitive. But will these announcements actually transform the rather staid state platforms, including Doordarshan and AIR?

                  It has been a hectic past one year for Ambika Soni, the I&B minister. The ministry has not only been instrumental in kick starting new initiatives in the Rs 60,000-crore media and entertainment sector, but has revived a number of key pending issues necessary for the long-term prosperity of this fast growing industry. Be it outlining a growth path for DD and AIR, regulating the fast-paced growth in the number of television channels, much-needed improvement in the business of television rating points (TRP); initiating the third-phase of private FM radio; or putting in place a content code and a separate broadcast regulator, Soni seems to be making efforts in taking all the stakeholders alongside in all the key initiatives.

           Rate it right

             The latest offering, a review of the existing TRP regime and exploration of a more active and direct role for itself in future, has been interpreted as the much needed assertive step that is required to set straight the seemingly absurd and lopsided TRP system that plays a huge role in determining advertising revenues for channels. The eight-member committee, led by FICCI secretary-general Amit Mitra, will examine whether the government should set up an institutional mechanism through legislation, which will either generate TRP ratings directly or work as an accreditation or standardisation authority while allowing private players to operate the TRP system. The committee would also be looking into a model wherein the TRP system would be less likely to be influential with respect to the content on television channels. The committee is mandated to submit its report by mid-August. "In the past year, the I&B ministry has taken initiatives that are time-bound and actionable. This is departure from the manner in which the ministry functioned before," a senior I&B official said.

            However, experts fear that the committee that has been set up might end up having the same fate as so many other committees in the past. "We have had repeated committees in the past. I have been a part of such a committee. For three years, the ministry has been sitting on our report without acting. Committees at times become ways to stall action on related issues. It would be great if they can succeed in bringing about some change," says PN Vasanti, director, Centre for Media Studies (CMS). Media critic Sevanti Ninan concurs. While she believes that just a committee won't do any good and that it has to be backed by action, she calls it a concrete development nevertheless. "I think the action taken on setting up a committee to go into the TRP question is a positive thing," she says.

                 TRPs have come under attack over issues of transparency and insufficient representation of national viewership. However, officials at TAM Media Research, the organisation that churns out the TRPs at present, say they are open to the government's role.

            "We have no objections at all if the government sees an active role for itself in this domain," says LV Krishnan, CEO of TAM. While he accepts that the rural market is not a part of TAM's analysis, he feels that TAM and the TRP system is targeted because it's easy to do so.

            "It is very easy for anyone to target and criticise TAM in public. We have always said it openly that the rural market is not a part of our ratings and that is because the industry is not interested in that data. On our part, we can surely make the rural viewers a part of our research universe, but who in the industry would be willing to bear the financial cost of it?" he asks. TAM currently has a universe of 35,000 respondents across 165 urban cities in the country. By TAM's own estimates, there are presently 70 million rural TV homes in the country, compared to 64 million in urban areas.

            Ruling the airwaves

        The ministry has ambitious plans for its flagship broadcaster, Prasar Bharati. A number of key policy decisions have been cleared in quick succession to provide Prasar Bharati with a competitive edge. The plans to turn DD and AIR digital could translate into a substantial improvement in picture and sound quality for viewers and listeners, as the country hopes to completely switch over to digital transmission by 2017. AIR is to be revamped ahead of the FM III policy and the ministry has lined up Rs 100 crore for AIR to generate fresh content, digitise its hardware and conduct live concerts.

           A decision by a group of ministers (GoM) in April decided to reduce the financial support to Prasar Bharati by half, translating as Rs 600 crore less for the public service broadcaster. The rest of the funding will have to be managed by Prasar Bharati through its internal budgetary resources. The move again is seen as a step in the direction of making Prasar Bharti self-dependent and competitive. The steps towards the reduction in budgetary allocations to Prasar Bharati have already been initiated, an official familiar with the developments confirmed.

         As per estimates, AIR, which has a network of 232 broadcasting centres with 171 FM transmitters, currently commands around 23% market share in terms of listenership. As per ministry data, AIR's FM stations have the highest number of listeners in metros, with its Rainbow and Gold channels getting 49.5% and 29.5%, respectively.

           Doordarshan, too, is closing in on the Rs 1,000-crore revenue mark (in 2009-10, it generated Rs 983 crore) while it continues to inch closer to achieving an operational break-even, which, considering the public service mandate of the network, is quite a feat. DD commands the biggest reach among television channels with around 450 million viewers. According to a TAM study in 2009, DD pipped best TRP grossing news as well as entertainment channels in terms of viewership, but lags far behind private satellite channels in terms of advertising revenue.

         Experts, however, believe that the ministry might just end up making the right noises. Going by experience, most are sceptical whether anything would really be achieved in practice. "To me these measures seem completely ad hoc. They don't seem to have a long-term vision on the industry and these small little developments would hardly lead to anything substantial. Like how can one decide to cut funding (to Prasar Bharati) without really having a broader vision about DD and AIR in the years to come?" asks PN Vasanti. According to I&B officials, reduction in funding to the public broadcaster does not translate into neglecting DD and AIR. "The proposed fund reductions are from the non-plan allocations. The government will continue to disburse loans and other necessary financial support. And this has been done after serious due diligence, knowing fully the potential of DD and AIR," an insider in the I&;B ministry said.

            Nothing official about it.

           The ministry also hopes to push long-standing issues and arrive at a consensus with various stake-holders on these contentious issues like the content code, separate regulator for the broadcast sector and the controversial broadcast Bill, which has been hanging since 1997. Speaking earlier to FE, Soni had asserted that she wants to take all the stakeholders in the loop while discussing these issues. "We do not want to use words like 'code', 'regulation' or 'guidelines' while discussing various important issues before the ministry. I want a response from every stakeholder, including resident welfare associations, NGOs and others on all issues," she had said.

          Deliberations have been on for the past few years regarding plans for setting up the Broadcast Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) on the lines of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). While BRAI's expected mandate would be to look into issues such as spectrum, TRPs and downlinking, the major opposition in the past to such a body has been on the issue of content regulation, which many in the media fraternity believe should be rested with the channels themselves on the principle of self-regulation. The ministry, however, expects to make headway on this issue in the months to come and seems to be adopting a consensus-building approach to tackle this issue as well.

           The issue is reportedly under the consideration of a committee headed by the ministry's secretary, Raghu Menon. Experts, however, feel that nothing concrete has emerged yet. Ninan says she doesn't see the regulation debate going anywhere for the time being, but places it as an important area for the ministry to act upon. "What people want is accountability in both the public broadcasters run with tax payers' money and in private broadcasters who are operating licensed channels. At the moment, neither is accountable. A simple thing that the ministry should do is set up a complaint-receiving mechanism so that both kinds of broadcasters are accountable to citizens," she says. She adds that any such exercise needs to be linked to the licensing process to make it effective.

         Vasanti sees Soni's role with some optimism. "She (Soni), it seems, is making serious attempts to talk to the concerned stakeholders and civil society. We all are eagerly waiting to see what action she takes," she says.

            The ministry is surely competing with its own less-than-perfect past. As it increasingly faces an ever stronger private sector for a share in eyeballs as well as revenues, its grand plans will have to take shape sooner rather than later.

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 BHARATI   endorse  all the views expressesd in this report.

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