Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Thursday, Sep 22, 2005
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Thursday, Sep 22, 2005 |
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Industry & Economy
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Radio/TV Government - Policy News channels must comply with uplinking norms by month-end Our Bureau
New Delhi , Sept. 21 THE Information and Broadcasting Ministry has decided not to offer any further extension to news channels that do not conform to the uplinking guidelines. They have been given time till the month-end to restructure their companies. Speaking to newspersons, the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Minister, Mr S. Jaipal Reddy, said, "The channels would have to adhere with the norms or they would not be permitted to uplink from India. There are a few channels which have not yet restructured themselves." Channels have, for over a year, been operating on temporary permissions. While Television Eighteen, which has sought permission to uplink three channels, has not yet submitted its restructured application, Zee News is learnt to have done so just a few days ago. Mr Reddy said that the news channels would not only have to limit the foreign direct investment to 26 per cent, but the Indian promoter shareholding should also be at least 51 per cent. However, the Government is open to allowing foreign institutional investors to invest in these companies. Besides this, the Minister also added that the Group of Ministers (GoM) set up to look into the uplinking and downlinking norms have finalised its report. This will now have to be approved by the Cabinet. On the issue of mandatory sharing of broadcast rights with the national broadcaster, Prasar Bharati, the importance of the event would be the determining factor and not whether the rights were acquired before or after the policy is in place. On the issue of change in FDI limits for direct-to-home service, the Minister said that there are no immediate plans to do so.
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