Published on: Saturday 30 April 2011
Source: Media Mughals
By: Bhaskar Jha.

           The Information and Broadcasting Ministry has published its strategic plan for the next six years i,e from 2011-17 and it has proposed to propagate information, knowledge and entertainment amongst the masses of all sections with best use of technology and strategies.

           Recently, at the International Colloquium on Freedom of Expression & Human Rights, Ambika Soni, Minister, Information and Broadcasting Ministry urged the media to avoid sensationalism and trivialization of issues in the pursuit of commercial issues. To initiate it further, the Ministry has planned to set up a self-regulating mechanism for regulating the content of general entertainment channels that is acceptable to all stakeholders. It has also formulated a state-of-art Electronic Media Monitoring Centre (EMMC) to monitor and record channels on a 24x7 basis.

           The report suggests that Out of the 106 million Cable and Satellite homes 26 million are DTH and 80 million are cable homes. Thus 74% of TV subscribers in India are depending on Cable networks for entertainment. In order to promote the expansion of more of DTH and Digital Service Platforms the Ministry has proposed to make appropriate amendments in Foreign Direct Investment Policy. It aims to increase the FDI to meet the expenditure on digitalization and will collaborate with Finance Ministry to chalk out incentives for digitalization such as reduction of custom duties, tax holiday etc on digital equipment.

          The I&B Ministry will also be opening the gates of Radio Broadcasting Services to the private sector by rolling out the FM policy Phase-III in coming years to come, for which 806 additional private FM channels have been forseen to be set up covering cities with a population of more than 1 lakh. Apart from this, the Ministry has also put up a significant figure of Community Radio Stations which says that at present 103 CRS are operational which will increase upto 250 in the next six years. The report also raised hopes for AIR which aims to increase its coverage in both its analogue and digital modes. It added that digitalization will make its broadcast available on alternate platforms such as webcasting / Podcasting / SMS / Mobile services and in respect of content, a 24 hour AIR news channel also will be introduced in coming times.

          Meantime Doordarshan, which has 35 satellite channels with vast network of 66 studios and 1415 transmitters providing TV coverage to about 92% population of the country also, plans to switch from analog to digital transmitters to get better picture quality. It will enable HDTV telecasts for viewers and will also upgrade its DTH platform to accommodate 200 channels by the end of the 12th plan from the present level of 59 channels to make viewing channels less expensive than before. DD plans to produce 15,067 episodes for various channels in the next three years starting from 2010-11. Out of this 12,400 episodes will be made in-house and 2,667 episodes commissioned through outside producers.

         The Government has also decided to formulate policy guidelines for provision of Mobile TV services in India as mobile screen is becoming the fourth screen to the consumers after cinema, TV and computers across the world.

http://mediamughals.com/News/1/13/Article/7257/I&B_Ministry_publishes_strategic_plan_for_2011-17.htm

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