Government revises guidelines for uplinking, downlinking of TV channels
New Delhi: After around 11 years, the government at the Centre on Wednesday approved the revised guidelines for the uplinking and downlinking of TV channels in India, making the programmes of national interest and national importance mandatory for a 30-minutes time slot for the broadcast and an increase in annual fees.
While talking to the media persons here, Information and Broadcasting secretary Apurva Chandra said that the consolidated guidelines are aimed at easing issues regarding permissions to the companies or LLPs registered in India for uplinking and downlinking of TV channels, setting up of teleports or teleport hubs, use of digital satellite news gathering (DSNG) or satellite news gathering (SNG) or electronic news gathering (ENG) systems, uplinking by Indian news agencies and temporary uplinking of a live event.
Further, the new guidelines aim to ease compliance for a permit holder, and with this intent, specific timelines have been proposed for the grant of permission. The guidelines revised in 2011. Chandra mentioned that under the new guidelines, all the private channels have to keep a 30-minute slot to telecast content in the national interest or for public services though there was no such provision earlier. However, it will be the channel's content and the government will not provide it. The senior official said a detailed circular will be disseminated within a few days.
"From now, we have introduced a new provision that the channels will be required to broadcast a particular piece of content which will be of public interest. Seven-eight themes have been given in the guidelines for public interest, as the channels will be free to hear the content of their choice. So given the obligations to broadcast this, this is a new thing for which we will be consulting the channels and will come out with more detailed guidelines," Chandra said.
Besides, under the new guidelines, the requirement for seeking permission for the live telecast of events has been done away with and only prior registration of events to be telecast live would be necessary. You don't need prior permission for a change of language or conversion of the mode of transmission from Standard Definition (SD) to High Definition (HD) or vice versa as only prior intimation would be required.
In case of emergency, for a company/ LLP with only two Directors/Partners, changes can be done subject to security clearance post such appointment, to enable business decision making. The new guidelines state that a company can use news gathering equipment other than DSNG, such as optic fibre, back pack, mobile, for which no separate permission would be necessary.
In the revised guidelines, one composite set of guidelines has replaced two separate guidelines, the structure of the guidelines has been systematised to avoid duplication and the TV channels uplinking in frequency bands other than the C band are mandatorily required to encrypt their signals. The net worth requirement for companies or LLPs holding permissions is to be as per the guidelines at the time of renewals. Moreover, the penalty clauses have been rationalised and separate natures of penalties have been proposed for a different types of contraventions as against uniform penalty at present.
He said that there are more than 870 channels operating in the country, and a number of steps have been taken for ease of doing business with the journals. "Based on our experience, these guidelines have been amended. Now the permission will not be required for any registration but they will be required for changes in a channel from SD to HD or more changes in language etc," Chandra mentioned.
