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Hyderabad , Sept. 8

THE Chairman of Prasar Bharati, Mr M.V. Kamath, is for the imposition of licence fee for radio & TV sets at the point of purchase.

Concurring with the idea mooted by the Prasar Bharati CEO, Mr K.S. Sarma, he said there are nearly 125 million radio sets in the country and a large number of TVs. License fee could considerably enhance revenues, Mr Kamath told newspersons on the sidelines of a seminar organised here by the All India Radio.

There is a case for discussing the proposal, especially in the background of decreasing advertising revenues for Doordarshan and Radio in view of the competition from private channels, he said. "Even if we charge Rs 10 per set, the revenue could be huge", he added.

Mr Kamath said the Information and Broadcasting Ministry had in-principle agreed to the proposal for the launch of a 24-hour exclusive news channel by the Doordarshan. Though the time and schedules have not been worked out, the idea is to provide credible and extensive news content to the large viewership, the Prasar Bharati Chairman said.

Efforts were underway to revive the `Indian Listener', a weekly magazine brought out by the AIR a couple of decades ago to give a glimpse of important talks, programmes and other useful information to the listeners, he said.

Earlier in his address to the seminar, Mr Kamath detailed the growth and challenges for the AIR and DD over the years. He urged them to stick to their mandate, while providing quality content and not ape the competition.

There is a spurt even in the reach of the Radio with 5,000 community radio stations, 40 Gyan Vani channels, 108 private FM channels, hundreds of Internet radio and satellite radio stations with digital broadcast facilities in the offing, he said.

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