[cr-india] some CR figures

[sajan venniyoor]

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On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 Subramaniam Vincent wrote :
>Let's say our government ...rolls out >licensing policy for FM-radio >which only has two broad categories of >licenses: a) Commercial FM b) >Non-commercial educational FM  (NC) 

You have a very valid point there. I think we are tying ourselves in semantic knots trying to define radio in terms of Commercial, Community, Campus, Niche, so on and so forth. (The Amit Mitra committee came up with 'non-commercial and niche channels', more of which anon). Placing radio in two broad categories - commercial and non-commercial - would simplify things considerably and would be more meaningful. Any 'sub-category' can be defined in terms of content, but we would have to define these two broad categories in terms of carriage also.

>These two categories above could lead to several 'applications' of the
>license. For e.g.
>NC: Community radio; independent public broadcasting;
>campus/educational.institution radio; religious/cultural channels; etc.
>Commerical: News and music; music only; niche music only; news, music & >some public affairs programming; religion/cultural programs.

This is where we move into the realm of content, and into Ministry of I&B territory.

>The key point above is that government does not decide which licensee
>airs what kind of programming. Govt sets the ground rules on what a NC
>can do for viability and cannot, and likewise for a C broadcaster.
>Content is upto them as long as it is within broadcast code.

I think TRAI could live with this formulation, but the I&B Ministry - and most certainly the commercial operators - would have much to say about letting non-commercial operators decide their own programme content. From what I know about govt. policy making, we may have to settle for some mystic proportion like "70% developmental programmes and not more than 30% entertainment programmes". Would be very difficult to enforce, of course, but that's the way it is.

>The sarkari question is here is this: What if a station calls itself
>'CR' is not really one? But the listening community can also make that
>decision, and the government could withdraw to ensure that the law is
>observed.

Precisely. And just for the record, there isn't a great deal the govt. can do if a station calls itself 'CR' and is not really one. None of the private FM channels are supposed to broadcast news. All of them do, under various guises, and the govt. hasn't done much about that either. And the listening community may well be happy to listen to film songs.

>This then leads to different questions: Should the government then
>legislate for CR directly or enable it thru a broader licensing system? >The answer to this question depends on where each of us are coming from, >our experiences, our sense of what might work in India, and our >suspicions/assertions about what might not.

Legislating for each kind of radio separately doesn't seem to make much sense, does it? For instance, Arun Mehta introduced the concept of a private 'public service broadcaster', which makes perfect sense actually. And what about all those 'niche' channels and 'non-commercial channels' broadcasting cultural programmes that were proposed by the Mitra committee? A broader licensing system would embrace all these and more, instead of leading us into a policy quagmire.

Incidentally, on the issue of 'niche and non-commercial channels', TRAI recommended that "this issue can  be delinked from the current process which is aimed at promoting the growth of private FM radio and more specifically the licensing conditions for Phase II."   

>But on the other hand, if the government was interested in funding or
>incentivising CR itself (may all the advocacy can help here) and
>recognizes that CR needs a push, then there is a need for a separate
>policy under an NC licensing scheme where specific entities could apply to quality for 'official CR' funding/incentives/subsidies, after they've been approved for an NC license. 

Well, Amit Mitra did suggest a Universal Service Obligation levy to be paid up by commercial operators, like the one levied in the Telecom sector. We suggested that a part of it should be diverted to CR. The Govt. believes that rural telecom needs a push (see today's TRAI Consultation Paper on rural telecom), and the Planning Commission certainly believes that rural radio deserves a push, but would CR be singled out for Govt. largesse? Wouldn't other non-commercial channels be equally deserving?

Sajan.