Jaitley raps Zee chief for criticising Govt DTH policy

Jaitley raps Zee chief for criticising Govt DTH policy
ENS ECONOMIC BUREAU

CHENNAI, NOV 3: Union minister for law, justice and company affairs, Arun Jaitley rapped Zee Chairman Subash Chandra on the knuckles on government restrictions. At the inaugural session of the CII-sponsored Media Unconvention here today, Jaitley countered Chandra’s argument on concerns of industry on issues like monopoly by stating that restrictions imposed by the government in the form of regulations were to protect the common interest of consumers.

‘‘Some of the stipulations prescribed by the government for allowing Direct-to-Home (DTH) operations in India were ‘impractical and unrealistic’, Chandra said. Chandra said the restriction that no broadcasting or cable network company could hold more than 20 per cent of the total equity in an applicant company deserved to be modified. ‘‘In the name of competition, there was a tendency to gravitate to duopoly or monopoly without taking the larger interest of the consumer,’’ Jaitley said. “Competition is no doubt the best protection for the consumer but in the electronic media while encouraging competition also gravitates to duopoly or monopoly. This is always a matter of concern to the government,” the minister pointed out.

Subash Chandra, delivering a special address in the capacity as the chairman of CII national committee on media, waxed eloquent on the sweeping technological changes occuring in the convergence scenario in India. But he said besides some issues like what is monopoly, industry is concerned also with whether an existing broadcaster can apply for Ku band licence although he holds a licence for only C band transmissions today.

Chandra said some of these gray areas were perceived as restrictions and argued that technological changes required upgradation of regulations very quickly.Jaitley listed his own areas of concerns. Online news in the electronic media characteristically tried to update news by the minute, an inherent advantage over the print media, But in the rush to catch up with the latest and also provide a different angle of news and events, there were more inaccuracies and also more speculative reporting. This actually means devolvement of more responsibility on the editorial team to ensure that the news is accurate and without speculative errors.

The minister listed the areas of concerns in the matter of convergence of media: First, protection of economic interest of print media - the share of commercial revenue of the print media is coming down. The economic interest of newspapers cannot be neglected. The survival of print media demands commercial support without conflicting with the right of freedom of expression.

The lack of credibility of the print media, protection of intellectual property, remodelling of libel laws and regulations to protect consumers interest in the rapidly expanding media areas were some of the other major concerns aired by Jaitley. The minister contented that the reach of the broadcasting media was phenomenal in India without any parallels. Electronic media was growing by leaps and bounds. Televison extends to 75 million homes now. Cable TV already has crossed 35 milion homes. Radio extends to 110 million homes. Internet is now accessible in one million homes.

While reach of convergence areas like voice, video and data are seeing exponential growth, receipt of communication is also instrumental in speeding up the growth of convergence. Commerce and economic interest converge into one. Tariff determination for different segments of convergence like broadcasting and mobile phones (which have voice, data and telephony rolled into one) are yet to be made.