Home


Crowdfunding Countercurrents

Submission Policy

Popularise CC

Join News Letter

Defend Indian Constitution

CounterSolutions

CounterImages

CounterVideos

CC Youtube Channel

Editor's Picks

Press Releases

Action Alert

Feed Burner

Read CC In Your
Own Language

Bradley Manning

India Burning

Mumbai Terror

Financial Crisis

Iraq

AfPak War

Peak Oil

Globalisation

Localism

Alternative Energy

Climate Change

US Imperialism

US Elections

Palestine

Latin America

Communalism

Gender/Feminism

Dalit

Humanrights

Economy

India-pakistan

Kashmir

Environment

Book Review

Gujarat Pogrom

Kandhamal Violence

Arts/Culture

India Elections

Archives

Links

About Us

Disclaimer

Fair Use Notice

Contact Us

Subscribe To Our
News Letter

Name:
E-mail:

Search Our Archive



Our Site

Web

 

Order the book

A Publication
on The Status of
Adivasi Populations
of India

 

 

 

Northeast India Deserves A Credible News Channel !

By Nava Thakuria

17 March, 2015
Countercurrents.org

As satellite news channels in various regional languages are booming
in India, churning out sensational stories, the question of the
credibility of the channels becomes pressing.

India with over a billion population has more than 400 privately owned
satellite news & current affairs channels, where most of the
television media outlets are registered as 'free to air' with the
information & broadcasting ministry (under the Government of India)
and so they are not entitled to ask the viewers for money directly.
This implies that any audience can have the news and related
programmes produced and telecast by these channels for free of cost.
The consumers have only to pay the distributors, namely the cable
transmission agencies and privately run direct to home (DTH)
operators.

The operating costs of the free-to-air news channels, most of which
are regional language ones, are seemingly managed from advertisement
revenues. Indirectly, it means that the advertisers, not the viewers,
always enjoy a say (influence) in the content of the news channels
irrespective of merit and authenticity.

Totally dependent as they are on advertisement revenue, it is
difficult to imagine how the television channels can pursue ethical,
credible and impartial journalism. The closure of two Guwahati-based
satellite news channels brought to light some bitter truths about the
distribution process of television channels across the country.

Prime News, a 24×7 private news channel, stopped operations on October
1, 2013, with the management implying that it was unable to pay a huge
amount of money to the local cable network distribution agencies. It
informed employees that it could not meet the cable network’s demand
for nearly Rs 2 crore as carriage fee, due to which cable operators
had blacked it out for nearly three weeks in September 2013.
This in turn led to very poor television rating points. Frontier TV,
another news channel, also faced unofficial closure following a
massive financial crisis relating to the sensational multi-crore
Saradha scam.

Today, northeast India hosts five privately owned satellite news channels (News
Live, DY365, News Time Assam, Prag and Focus NE) and a few
entertainment and local cable channels. The channels beam news and
other programmes mostly in Assamese, English, Hindi and Bengali.
While the owners of the Guwahati-based private news channels allege
that they have to pay around Rs 20 million, which is one-fifth of
their annual expenditure, to cable network agencies every year for
facilitating distribution of their programmes to viewers, the cable
television operators’ association in Guwahati claims that they have
the right to receive carriage fee from the channel owners.

Private DTH service providers also allegedly ask for similar amounts
from the free-to-air news channels. Moreover, DTH operators (Dish TV,
Tata Sky, Sun Direct, Airtel Digital TV, Reliance Digital TV) always
select channels with the sole motive of profit, irrespective of the
commitment of the concerned channels to the country and the nation.
What is worth a mention is that the private DTH services have already
completed a decade in India, following the Union government in New
Delhi issued the license to Dish TV to operate in the country in 2003.
Initially concentrated on the rural market of India, where the cable
operators are not visible still today, the DTH operator slowly
encroached into city and metros.

By 2006, Tata Sky joined the competition with high-quality signal and
a kind of choice for subscribers to select their package of channels.
The rest of the DTH operators had stepped into the business in and
after 2008 to give a huge boost to the Indian television distribution
market.

The DTH operators in India today tap over 40 million active
subscribers and the number is increasing every month. With quality
transmission, the DTH operators have empowered the subscribers to
select their packages (instead of depending on the whims of cable
operators).

India today has over 800 registered satellite television channels,
more than half of which are news channels in different regional
languages. Union Ministry sources reveal that there are over 410
privately owned news & current affairs channels, making the news
broadcasting industry in the populous country worth around Rs 20
billion.

The Electronic Media Forum Assam and Journalists’ Forum Assam recently
urged the Union government to reform the distribution system of local
news channels. Both the organizations wanted the transaction between
the channel owners and the cable network operators as well as the DTH
authorities to be made taxable.

When a news channel has to spend for everything, including production
and distribution of its news, and the entire expenditure has to be
compensated through advertisement revenue, the commitment of the
free-to-air channels to the viewers can always be at stake.

Is it time to have few more paid/payable (read credible) news channels
in various regional languages, which can survive with contributions
from the subscribers?

With a transparent and dedicated management, the news channels may
function without having to heed the diktat of advertisers or pander to
the whims of distributors, as the conscious and esteemed viewers would
ultimately prevail over them for transforming themselves into credible
and pro-people media organizations.

Nava Thakuria is a journalist from Guwahati






.

 

 

 




 

Share on Tumblr

 

 


Comments are moderated