MxMIndia

Tag: self regulation broadcasting

  • MxMIndiacaught up with various stakeholders of broadcast and cable industry to get their responses on the recently issued TRAI tariff order and to understand their respective concerns in the run up to digitization of cable television

    54 Days to D-Day | Industry voices concerns on sunset date (Video)

    By Shruti Pushkarna

     

    With less than 60 days to go for the switch from analog to digital distribution, different stakeholders of the broadcast and cable industry are battling out their respective concerns with the government and the regulatory authority. Following the Tariff Order and Interconnection Regulations for the Digital Addressable Cable TV Systems issued by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), a lot of stakeholders have raised issues that will affect their business in which they deem the order to be unfair.

     

    While the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) protested against the carriage fee mentioned in the order, local cable operators (LCOs) carried out a black flag protest during the recent Assocham event attended by the Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Ms Ambika Soni. The LCOs have objected to the revenue share prescribed by the regulator and the Multi System Operators (MSOs) have expressed concern over the increased number of ‘must carry’ channels mandated by TRAI.

     

    MxMIndia spoke to a few representatives of the industry to understand their concerns in the run up to digitization.

     

    Ashok Mansukhani, President, MSO Alliance

    What’s your first response to the Tariff Order?

    The Tariff order has a mixture of good and bad. Fundamentally, it lays out the path for digitization but there are certain issues which worry us like the mandatory ‘must carry’ channels. We don’t think that’s a fair thing to do, if the broadcasters have the right to decide how many channels to bring to India or create within India, we should have the right to decide what should be the capacity, obviously the capacity is much larger in a big city than a small city. Apart from that, there are some issues on revenue share, which is based on a formula which is pending in the Supreme Court. Our worry is that if the Supreme Court decides otherwise, the whole business model would break down. These are the main two concerns.

     

    News broadcasters are objecting to the carriage fee mentioned in the order issued by TRAI, what’s your view on it?

    Now everything will be transparent. What is possibly going to happen is that carriage fee, which is creating such a big hoo-ha today, will get replaced by genuine pay channel ecosystem but that is about five years away. In the current process, we have to digitize about a 100 million homes and enormous sums of money are required but no fiscal incentive or tax incentive or infrastructure incentive has been given by the government. I think in the run up to digitization, the broadcaster should not derail the process; rather they should sit down with the cables operators and the MSOs and work packages with attractive content and at compelling rates to attract consumers. I think that’s really what they should be doing instead of writing editorials about carriage fees.

     

    Do you think the sunset date of June 30 is achievable?

    No, it’s not achievable. There are just 60 days left. The negotiations with broadcasters have not begun. The revenue shares are default revenue shares but no discussions with operators have taken place. No agreements are in place. Out of 10 million boxes, only 2 million boxes have been installed. Many of those boxes don’t have smartcards, in other words, they don’t have the conditional access system, and they are vanilla digital set top boxes. I think it’s high time for the government to carry out a reality check. I am sure this will be discussed in the next task force and I am sure government will fix a new date.

     

    Jehangir Pocha, CEO, INX News

    What’s your first response to the Tariff Order?

    The TRAI order has been a disappointment to news broadcasters because we were repeatedly told that there would be no carriage fee. We were repeatedly told that there would a mandated EPG or menu system, which has not been delivered. These two things add up to a huge financial burden on broadcasters, especially news broadcasters, an industry that is, contrary to public assumption, not doing at all well, that is facing huge financial burdens and many channels have gone bankrupt.

     

    Apart from carriage, do you see any other issues in the run up to digitization?

    I think the other issues are really about the willingness and commitment with which the policy can be rolled out because this is going to disrupt some vested interests, it’s going to disrupt a regular way of doing business and therefore, there is going to be a natural push back. But the concept of digitization is superb, it’s wonderful that the government and the regulator have pushed for it, but there have been some imperfections in what they have presented. Another thing that doesn’t make enough economic common sense to me is how the price was set so low for free channels and pay channels because the entire industry’s problems stem from the fact that the consumer is literally being subsidized by paying such low price for content, which in every other country, costs so much more. How this price has been set, by whom and who’s paying for the inherent subsidy in this, there hasn’t been enough transparency on this.

     

    Both NBA and the IBF have expressed disconcert at the carriage fee in the order issued by TRAI, but the TRAI maintains that there is no cause for dissatisfaction on carriage fee. As a news broadcaster, what will be your next step?

    I think we will have to explain to TRAI and the ministry just what the imperfections in this otherwise very positive bill are, and how they will create a huge financial burden for news broadcasters, how it will push us towards bankruptcy, how it will stop us from being able to create quality content and how it will, in fact, stop us from growing. If the government is interested in inclusive growth, news broadcasters play a very valuable role in this industry and in this nation. And our financial concerns should be addressed in some manner both by TRAI and the government.

     

    Do you think the sunset date of June 30 is achievable?

    Everything is achievable if the intent is there. There may be some practical concerns but let’s be realistic, while the policy is being presented now, we knew for 6 to 7 months that it was going to happen and I’m not sure if MSOs and LCOs spent adequate amounts of money, time and effort on preparing for this day, which they knew was coming. Now they are saying, this day has come and we need more time. We have seen consistent attempts to delay digitization, and I think we should have very little patience with more delays.

     

    Pulak Bagchi, VP, Star India

    What’s your first response to the Tariff Order?

    It’s a step towards the right direction and I think it will be path breaking in terms of the reforms it triggers in the cable space.

     

    What’s your view on the concerns being raised by news broadcasters over carriage fee?

    Carriage is a phenomenon which is certainly not new – it’s been around since the inception of the industry. What TRAI has done is only put a method into the madness, which should be commended. Earlier, there was no transparency in the payments that were being made, now atleast you’ll be having a foothold into the figures. You’ll also be able to determine whether they are reasonable or not. TRAI has also said that they will be intervening in cases of arbitrary levels. So there’s really no cause for concern. I think we should not be pressing the panic button; it has taken so many years for the government and the regulator to come up with these formulations. It’s important that we live up to the mandate and we must also give regard to the expectations of the people of this country. Given that digitization is a reality today, the sooner we embrace it, the better.

     

    Do you think the sunset date of June 30 is achievable?

    It is, because it’s targeted towards four major cities where it’s not an alien concept. Perhaps there will be some incremental approaches that will be taken in those respective areas and I’m sure that the deadline could be met. There’s no difficulty in abiding by the timelines.

     

    Are there any marketing initiatives or consumer awareness campaigns that you are undertaking in the run up to digitization?

    Star and IBF have made it mandatory for all members to spread awareness in their respective channels. We are carrying out marketing campaigns, we are also doing citizen focused awareness programmes where people can be brought up to speed with what digitization is all about. And we are also trying to infuse in the public sensibilities as to why it is good for them.

     

    Roop Sharma, President, Cable Operators Federation of India (COFI)

    What’s your first response to the Tariff Order?

    It’s very bad from LCO’s perspective. Since there is a vertical monopoly and no cross media holding, none of the MSOs will be negotiating with the cable operator and if they don’t negotiate with the cable operator, the latter will end up taking only a Rs45 share, with which the business becomes unviable and the LCO will be unable to give better quality service to the consumer. Even the set top boxes, which are going to be put, are of vanilla quality, they are very primitive boxes. Consumer will not be able to get internet, broadband or other services on the same box. Cable operator has to spend so much money in upgrading and the government has just mandated a technology. We are even ready to upgrade, but we must get a proper share. The regulator wants to be the controller of the business. As a result, lot of cable operators will be forced to sell off their network or the network will die its own death. There will be a lot of unemployment generated in the market.

     

    Do you think the sunset date of June 30 is achievable?

    No, the timeline is very short. First is the procurement of boxes – in Chennai none of the MSOs have given any orders for boxes. Even in Kolkata, we are hearing that the state government was not consulted.

     

  • Assocham organized the 6th annual summit on entertainment and media, Focus 2012 where the topic in focus was Digitization for Inclusive Growth

    Full report of Assocham ‘focus’ on M&E

    By Shruti Pushkarna

     

    Assocham organized the 6th annual summit on entertainment and media, Focus 2012, inNew Delhion May 4 where the topic in focus was Digitization for Inclusive Growth. The event began with a keynote address by the Chairman of Press Council of India, Justice Markandey Katju, who came down heavily on the media once again, in his address.

     

    Justice Katju referred to the role played by the European media between the 17th and 19th century. He talked about the sacrifices made by writers like Voltaire, Rousseau and Thomas Paine to uplift the society and help it convert from a feudal state to a modern society. He criticised the Indian media for promoting superstition in form of cheap astrology shows on news television channels all day instead of promoting rational and scientific ideas. He said: “The function of the media is to uplift the intellectual levels of citizens, but our media instead has stooped down to the level of Indians, of which 90 per cent are fools.” He said that in the race for TRPs, the television channels focus on entertainment which constitutes 90 per cent of programming and leaves only 10 per cent room for real issues to be telecast.

     

    Justice Katju urged media professionals to play a socially responsible role at a time whenIndia, likeEuropein the 17th century, is going through a transitional phase. He emphasized on the need to promote rational ideas in this period of transition in Indian history. He also emphasized on the need for regulation as opposed to self regulation. He said, “I am the greatest fighter for freedom for press and that’s why I am not recommending control but regulation. In control, there is no freedom but in regulation there is reasonable restriction in the public interest.”

     

    Self regulation is no regulation, he added: “You cannot have absolute freedom to harm society. There is need for regulation, and this regulation cannot be from the government, it has to be from an independent regulatory authority which has penal powers.”

     

     

    Broadcasting & Digitization: India Goes Digital- Challenges & Way Forward

    The session on broadcasting and digitization was chaired by Supriya Sahu, Joint Secretary (Broadband & Policy), Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The session was moderated by Preet Dhupar, Director, BBC World,India. The panelists included Anthony D’Silva, Group CEO, Sun Group; Hemant Upadhyay, Advisor, VOICE; Jehangir S Pocha, CEO, INX News; Roop Sharma, President, COFI; Vishal Mahajan, Sr. Director, Yes Bank; Himanshu Patel, COO Videocon D2H; Ashok Mansukhani, President, MSO Alliance; Joy Chakraborthy, CEO, TV Today Network; Pulak Bagchi, VP, Star India and SM Khan, DG, DD News.

     

    During the discussion, Ms Sahu said that the work on digitization, especially Phase 1, which looks at the four metros, was on track and with help from all stakeholders the government should be able to push digitization to happen in time. She defended the TRAI tariff order: “It is a win-win situation for every stakeholder. The clear winner, of course, is the consumer.” She said that the cities were almost ready for digitization, the government had made good progress as far as procurement of set top boxes (STBs) is concerned and the only area that needs attention is the seeding of these boxes. She agreed that for the target date to be achieved, around 20-25 lakh STBs have to be seeded and that makes it 1 lakh STBs to be seeded every day.

     

     

    Representing the MSO Alliance, Mr Mansukhani congratulated the government on taking up the challenge of digitization. He agreed that there were some concerns and issues on which they will seek clarification from the TRAI. He reiterated the commitment to digitization on part of MSOs and urged newspapers and business channels to clearly present all points of view to the debate on digitization.

     

    Ms Roop Sharma, President, COFI expressed hers and the cable operators’ disappointment at order issued by TRAI. She claimed that the order was unfair to LCOs and will result in putting them out of business: “Regulator wants to be the controller of the industry…the role of the regulator is very bad. We are all for digitization, but we are unhappy with the revenue share that has been decided in the order.” She added that 60 days are too less to meet the challenges of digitization and it is unlikely that the sunset date for Phase 1 is achievable.

     

    Jehangir Pocha, CEO INX News shared the plight of the broadcasters with the panelists on the issue of carriage fee. He said that a channel like Times Now had to pay a carriage fee of Rs50-55 crore to reach the viewers. He said: “I can’t applaud this order. Those who applaud this regulation perhaps benefit from it. It is the first time in the history ofIndiathat carriage fee is legalized, institutionalized and not regulated.” He said that the government claims to have taken the views of all stakeholders involved but their views were taken only in theory and not in spirit.

     

    The TRAI in its recommendations stated: “Keeping in view the fact that substantial investment for implementation of Digital Addressable Cable TV Systems is made by the MSO and the cost involved in carriage of channels, the Authority has decided that every MSO may fix the Carriage Fee.” But Mr Pocha argued that why should a channel pay for MSO investment. He said he would like the government to issue a white paper that looks at the earnings of all players.

     

    Sun Group CEO Anthony D’Silva said that the need of the hour is to get down to the nitty-gritties: “The lessons learnt from DTH are applicable to any other digital system. We need to look at how the subscriber management systems will work, what are the service parameters and who’ll set up the call centres because that involves huge costs.” He added that the government needs to look at  digitization as any other infrastructure project and support it by whatever means, whether its tax holiday or any other subsidies.

     

    Pulak Bagchi, VP, Star India expressed a need to recognize the challenge government and the regulator had in thinking through the entire process of digitization and the fact that it’s difficult to make everyone happy. He said: “Government and regulator are out there to protect the public interest and not to add to company bottom lines. We entrepreneurs need to work out our own course.”

     

    Responding to the issues voiced by the various panelists, Ms Sahu said: “All concerns are genuine and we would try and address them as well as we can but please read the fine print to clarify some of the concerns.” As for cable operators, she said that if cable operators don’t move to digitization fast enough, they will be wiped out by competition from DTH.

     

     

    Films, Animation and VFX: Digital Cinema- Present and Future

    The session was moderated by Karan Ahluwalia, Executive VP, Yes Bank and the panelists included, Ramesh Meer, CEO The FX Factory; Sunaman Sood, Co-founder, Director, Acendo Capital Advisors; Siddhartha M Jain, Producer@iRock; Vishnu Patel, CEO-Special projects, UFO Moviez and Manoj Srivastava, CEO, Enternainmentt Society of Goa.

     

    Siddhartha M Jain of iRock started the discussion by talking about the paradigm shift occurring in cinema: “Low budget films without stars which used to be niche earlier are picking up. We’ve had hits like Ragini MMS and Vicky Donor. So there is huge investor appetite, provided you have the right content. The key lies in keeping the budgets low and using the latest technology.” He added that there is also a huge power shift happening from Bollywood movies to movies outside Hindi cinema.

     

    Sunaman Sood said that producers have now begun to treat regional cinema with some seriousness, realising its potential. But Manoj Srivastava added that there is no platform or agency in the country that promotes regional cinema well enough.

     

    Speaking of digitization’s benefits to cinema, Vishnu Patel said that digital technology has helped revive the industry which was otherwise on a decline. He said that regional cinema has also benefitted from digital technology because digitization has cut down the distribution cost in terms of prints. Now regional film producers can distribute their films better without having to worry about prints’ costs.

     

     

    Print Media: Challenges and Opportunities in Digital Age

    The session was chaired by Suprio Guha Thakurta, MD, The Economist Group India. The session was moderated by Vikas Mehta, VP & Executive Business Director, JWT Delhi. The panelists included, Sukumar Ranganathan, Editor, Mint; Vandana Das, President, DDB Mudra;Sudha Sarin,MD, Ipan Hill & Knowlton and Raghav Subramanian, COO, Lintas Initiative Media.

     

    Sukumar Ranganathan initiated the debate by making a strong point that print is here to stay: “We often look at the western trends to decide the future of print in the country but we forget that the dynamics of the western market are very different from the Indian market.” He said that Mint has never defined itself as a newspaper; rather it looks at itself as a ‘newsroom’. Talking about integration of content, he said: “We update a story online as soon as it breaks. We also use social media to amplify the news. And in the paper, we value add with analysis and so on. I think integration is key to what a newspaper needs to do to survive in a digital area.”

     

    Suprio Guha Thakurta echoed Mr Ranganathan’s views but he also emphasized on the fact that content for every platform needs to be looked at differently: “You can’t just cut and paste from print to online or any other device.” He added that The Economist, which at present has about 85 per cent of subscriptions from print, aims at converting these into at least 50 per cent in digital in the next two years.

     

    Raghav Subramanian said: “It’s not that print is going to go away but it’s being increasingly threatened by digitization. Print is slow as a medium and now with news all over the place, the tangible paper is eroding in terms of the first choice for the younger generation.”

     

    Concluding the debate, all panelists agreed on the need to integrate content across different media to reach out to consumers/viewers/readers at different touch points.

     

     

    Radio and Music: New Avenues for Revenue/ Social Media & Gaming: Creating New Markets

    The last two sessions on radio and gaming were merged into one discussion. The session was moderated by Uday Chawla, Secretary General, AROI and the panelists included, Anand Raj, Head- Non Traditional Revenue, Red FM; Geetanshu Anand, Head- Content, Mystica Music; Pallab Mitram Head- Consumer VAS, Tata Teleservices; Deepak Abbot, Head- Product, Zapak Digital Entertainment Pvt Ltd; Nikunj Jain, CEO, Inoxapps; Anshu Mor, Lead Entertainment & Media, Microsoft; CP Singh, CTO, Possible Worldwide; Akhilesh Saurikhia, Consultant, Department of Electronic and IT, Govt of India and Viraj Malik, CEO & MD, PK Online Ventures Pvt Ltd.

     

    Anand Raj of Red FM talked about alternate revenue avenues that radio stations can look at. He said that audio production is an unorganized market right now and if radio stations start looking at doing audio productions in-house, there is huge potential for revenues. He also pointed out initiative like the Mahabharata or Ramayana productions done by Fever and how radio stations can look at making money by selling productions like these to VAS mobile operators. Another area that radio stations haven’t exploited properly he said was social media. He said that radio can look at building communities on social media for commerce.

     

    Geetanshu Anand of Mystica Music said: “There is no lack of avenues for revenues; all we need to do is fill up the loopholes for revenues.” Radio industry, she said, plays a crucial role in promotion of music but when it comes to rights sharing then both radio and music companies get selfish and each wants a larger pie. She said that the need for the hour was to review the statutory licenses. She also said that it is important for radio to start promoting non-film music alongside film music.

     

    Talking about gaming and creating new markets for it, Anshu Mor of Microsoft said: “It’s important for us as an industry to change the concept of gaming and how we look at gaming.” He added that social media provides with an opportunity to promote the ‘Brand Me’ and hence plays a huge role in marketing.

     

    Viraj Malik added that mobile gaming is on a rise and will turn into a larger opportunity inIndiabecause mobile is fairly big in terms of reach and affordability. And this creates a huge opportunity for content and app developers, he said.