[cr-india] I&B ministry's views on TRAI recommendations on FM radio

[sajan venniyoor]

Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has submitted its views on TRAI
Recommendations on Phase III of FM licensing. The I&B ministry's views are
available here: http://mib.nic.in/fm/ReferenceTRAI.pdf

Regarding the broadcast of News & Current affairs on FM radio, TRAI had
recommended: "FM Radio broadcasters may be permitted to broadcast news
taking content from AIR, Doordarshan (DD), authorized TV news channels,
United News of India (UNI), Press Trust of India (PTI) and any other
authorized news agency without any substantive change in the content. No
other source of news is permitted at present."

The I&B Ministry's response, which also defines what's non-news, is as
follows;

"In the absence of a Regulatory Authority with a localized presence and any
arrangement for monitoring the Private channels and the sensitivities
involved, it is not possible to allow complete freedom to Broadcast News
even though the content may be sourced from Authorised agencies as
suggested. What is material is the way of presentation. The same event can
be sensationalized or put in a sober manner taking care of the sentiments
and sensitivities involved. Thus while the Government can allow the news
bulletins of AIR or the Audio version of the news programmes of DD on such
terms and conditions to be mutually agreed with Prasar Bharati, it is
difficult at this stage to allow Private operators to Broadcast news on
their own.

However, Government recognizes the need to enable Radio broadcasters to
bring in diversity in their content and to make the radio broadcast fulfill
certain other needs of the listeners apart from remaining only as a means of
entertainment.

Therefore broadcast pertaining to following categories can be treated as a
non-news and current affairs broadcast:

(i) Commentaries (including live broadcast) and information pertaining to
sporting events,
(ii) Information pertaining to Traffic and Weather,
(iii) Information pertaining to and coverage of cultural events, festivals
(iv) Coverage of topics pertaining to examinations, results, admissions,
career counseling
(v) Availabilty of employment opportunities
vi) Public announcements pertaining to civic amenities like electricity,
water supply, natural calamities, health alerts etc. as provided by the
local administration
(vii) Such other categories as may be specifically permitted by Ministry of
Information and Broadcasting from time to time.

Opinion of the Government as to whether a particular broadcast falls in
these exempt categories or not shall be final and binding."
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/cr-india/attachments/20081128/d10dbf74/attachment.html