Among the unfinished agenda in the media industry that the new government will have to take a call on immediately includes passing of policies on Head-end in the Sky (HITS) and Satellite Radio. While HITS, a digital television technology like DTH that the government expects will usher in affordable digitalisation in rural areas, making large section of cable sector addresseable, the satellite radio policy would provide clarity to an area where WorldSpace India is the sole commercial player.
The new information and broadcasting minister on the other hand would have his or her hands full with substantial amount of complicated issues that remain unaddressed or are in the middle of processing in the ministry.
The issue of third round of FM radio expansion, wherein over 700 FM station licences in 210 cities and towns (majority of which lying in tier II and tier III towns) are to auctioned needs to sorted out.
Making the issue cumbersome is the unresolved tussle between music industry and FM radio players on the amount and form of royalty demanded by the former. After the ministry has been informed by the FM radio players that unless the current royalty demand of the music industry is rationalised, the phase III auction would be a non-starter, the ministry has started a mediation process between the two sides in the question.
However no progress on the issue has been made so far. Other major issues pending in the ministry include a final decision on the hike in FDI in cable networks, DTH and a host of other carriage platforms, as well as the roll out of conditional access system. The sector regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had recommended in April 2008 that in view of convergence of technologies between the telecom and broadcasting sectors, the FDI limit in the cable networks, DTH, HITS, mobile TV be raised to 74% from the current 49%.
Also, Trai had recommended that the FDI cap in FM radio and news and current affairs channel be raised to 49% from the current 20% and 26% respectively. There are also sub issues within the DTH and cable sector that demand attention like multiplicity of taxes, decision on the issue of licence fee to be paid by DTH players alongside others.
The policy in areas like television rating points and restructuring of cable services, other than cross media restrictions also need firming up. Recommendation on the above have been sent by Trai to I&B already.
The regulator in late August, proposed self regulation for television rating business, through an industry led expert body, but built in a role for government in the whole process. Earlier in July, Trai had suggested that the cable operators, both multi system operators and local cable operators, be brought under the licensing regime from the existing registration system. It also set a target of five years for the cable operators to migrate to digital transmission.