NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has extended till 6 January the written comments on its Consultation Paper on "Issues related to prescribing minimum Channel spacing, within a license service area, in FM Radio sector in India".

Stakeholders can also send counter comments by 13 January, a Trai press note said, adding that this had been done on the request of stakeholders. Earlier, the last dates for comments and counter comments were 26 December and 2 January respectively.

With A and A+ cities demanding more FM channel even after the announcement of the Phase III guidelines, Trai had sought the opinion of stakeholders whether it would be acceptable if the minimum channel spacing within a license service area can reduced from the current level of 800 KHz.
 
It had said that if it can be reduced, then stakeholders should suggest what the minimum level should be, justifying their answers with reasoning. Issues such as the viability and desirability of having more number of channels in the interest of the stakeholders, selectivity of FM receivers available with the consumers ( such as mobile handsets, car radios, and other receivers), transmission from a single or multiple transmission setups may please be factored in should also be considered.

The Consultation Paper asked stakeholders to consider the implications of reducing/not-reducing the minimum channel spacing within a license service area. Furthermore, should the reduction of minimum channel spacing be confined to A+ and A category cities or should it be reduced across the country, and how should funding for the modification of transmitting setups be funded.

The Paper says that a second solution suggested by the operators requires a separate common transmission infrastructure (CTI) which includes transmitting tower, combiners, feeder cable, transmitting antenna etc. Effectively there would be two CTIs, one existing and another new one.

NEW DELHI: With A and A+ cities demanding more FM channel even after the announcement of the Phase III guidelines, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has sought the opinion of stakeholders whether it would be acceptable if the minimum channel spacing within a license service area can reduced from the current level of 800 KHz.

It has said that if it can be reduced, then stakeholders should suggest what the minimum level should be, justifying their answers with reasoning.

Issues such as the viability and desirability of having more number of channels in the interest of the stakeholders, selectivity of FM receivers available with the consumers (such as mobile handsets, car radios, and other receivers), transmission from a single or multiple transmission setups may please be factored in should also be considered.

In a consultation paper on "Issues related to prescribing minimum Channel spacing, within a license service area, in FM Radio sector in India", Trai has asked stakeholders to consider the implications of reducing/not-reducing the minimum channel spacing within a license service area. Furthermore, should the reduction of minimum channel spacing be confined to A+ and A category cities or should it be reduced across the country, and how should funding for the modification of transmitting setups be funded.

Stakeholders have been asked to send in their written comments by 26 December and counter-comments by 2 January 2012.

The Paper says that a second solution suggested by the operators requires a separate common transmission infrastructure (CTI) which includes transmitting tower, combiners, feeder cable, transmitting antenna etc. Effectively there would be two CTIs, one existing and another new one.

The combiner designed for 800 KHz spacing could be used as the channel separation within a CTI would remain 800 KHz. However, suitably choosing the new channel frequencies (having channel separation of 800 KHz) in between the existing channel frequencies radiated from the existing CTI (also having channel separation of 800 KHz), would effectively result in channels spaced at 400 KHz for the license area for which these two CTIs are meant.

Trai has pointed out that after the policy for Phase III was declared for 839 new private FM channels in 294 cities in July, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry had asked the regulator to study the issue of reducing channel spacing in view of the demand from operators in A+ and A cities which have already been covered in the first two phases.

The consultation paper analyses the issue of minimum channel spacing among the FM channels in light of the factors such as selectivity of the FM radio receivers, capability of combiners to effectively combine closely spaced channels, multiplicity of transmitting sites within the service area, mode of funding in case of up-gradation/creation of transmission setups is required.

NEW DELHI: The Indian government is making it tougher for those who have dodgy backgrounds to launch new channels, particularly in the news genre. While there is no cap on the number of television channels in the country, the net worth norms have been stiffened.

For news and current affairs channels, the net worth criteria has been revised upwards, climbing almost seven times from Rs 30 million to Rs 200 million for the first channel and Rs 50 million for each additional channel.

Clearly, the government has been influenced by a wide array of channel launches from promoters who are not serious about the news business but have got in because of dubious reasons.

In the case of the general entertainment channels and downlinking of foreign channels, the net worth criteria has been revised from Rs 15 million to Rs 50 million for the first channel and Rs 25 million for each additional channel.

The period of permission/registration for uplinking/downlinking of channels will be uniform at 10 years. Renewal of the ermissions of TV channels will be considered for a period of 10 years at a time, subject to the condition that the channel should not have been found guilty of violating the terms and conditions of permission including violations of the Programme and Advertisement Code on five occasions or more.

This follows a decision of the Union Cabinet to recast the existing "Policy Guidelines for Uplinking and Downlinking of TV channels". The Information and Broadcasting Ministry has also made various amendments in the existing policy to reflect the fast evolving electronic media landscape in the country.

The changes come about 15 months after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) made its recommendations, since the Ministry had felt those recommendations were too steep and sent its own views to the regulator for taking a final view.

The amendments envisage significant changes in the eligibility criteria of companies seeking to operate TV channels in India in order to ensure that only serious and credible operators are permitted to operate such channels and the electronic media landscape is not unnecessarily crowded by non-serious players.
 
Permission had been granted by 31 August this year to 745 private satellite TV channels, out of which 366 TV channels were permitted in the category of ‘News and Current Affairs‘ and 379 in the category of ‘Non-News and Current Affairs‘.

The net worth criteria for teleports would be uniform irrespective of channel capacity. The net worth criteria would remain Rs 30 million for the first teleport and Rs 10 million for every additional teleport.

All TV channels would be required to operationalise their TV channels within a time frame of one year from the date of permission, for which Non-News and current affairs channels will have to sign a Performance Bank Guarantee (PBG) of Rs.10 million whereas News and Current Affairs channels will have to give a Performance Bank Guarantee for Rs. 20 million. In the event of non-operationalisation of the permitted channel within a period of one year, the PBG will be forfeited and permission cancelled.

One of the persons occupying the top management position - Chairperson or Managing Director or Chief Executive Officer or Chief Operating Officer or Chief Technical Officer or Chief Financial Office in the applicant company - should have a minimum of three years of prior experience in a media company, for both News and Non-News channels.

Proposals of merger, de-merger and amalgamation will be allowed under the provisions of Companies Act, after obtaining the permissions of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.

Channels operating in India and uplinked from India but meant only for foreign viewership should be required to ensure compliance of the rules and regulations of the target country for which content is being produced and uplinked.

Permission fee for uplinking/downlinking of TV channels and setting up of teleports would be Rs 200,000 per channel/teleport per annum. Permission fee for downlinking of TV channels uplinked from India would be Rs.500,000 per channel per annum. Permission fee for downlinking of TV channels uplinked from abroad would be Rs 1.5 million per channel per annum.

Trai had initially recommended that for general entertainment channels, the total net worth requirement should be Rs.250 million for first channel, and enhanced by Rs100 million for each additional channel. But for news and current affairs channels, the total net worth requirement should be Rs1 billion for first channel, and enhanced by Rs.250 million for each additional channel. The Trai recommendations had come following a directive from I&B Minister Ambika Soni in October 2009 to examine whether there was need to put a cap on the number of TV channels in the country.

There are separate Policy Guidelines for permission/regulation of private satellite TV channels in India. While regulation of foreign TV channels uplinked from abroad and distributed in India for public viewing is governed by "Policy Guidelines for Downlinking of Television channels" notified on 11 November 2005, private TV channels which are uplinked from India are governed by "Guidelines for Uplinking from India" notified on 2 December 2005. Uplinking Guidelines also provide for permission and regulation of Teleports. After these Guidelines were notified, there has been an exponential growth of television channels, especially during the last few years.