By Abid Hasan
Uday K Varma, Secretary, Ministry for Information & Broadcasting, has been the quiet enabler of the shift from analogue to digital era in television
India’s Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has always been at the forefront of change, taking the country forward to newer frontiers of technology and communication with regard to the government’s functioning and the media. Stories abound about famous ministers and bureaucrats who have walked the corridors of MIB, making it the stuff of legend. The man who effortlessly stepped into their shoes and took on the crucial agenda of digitization of television in the country is none other than Secretary, MIB, Uday Kumar Varma. Varma, a 1976-batch IAS Officer, is a savvy bureaucrat who talks of Google hangouts and Twitter conferences in the same breath as he talks of the ground reality of digitization. But in his own quiet way, he has been the enabler of the first two phases of digitization, working first with then I&B Minister Ambika Soni and now the current I&B Minister Manish Tewari to achieve the target, albeit with a few hiccups.
PHASE II WOES
For example, Phase II of digitization was expected to be implemented smoothly, but cities like Jabalpur, Indore and Bhopal still run on analogue and they have also got a stay order from court for a month. “In Phase II of digitization of analogue cable services encompassing 38 towns, more than 90% digitization has taken place. In fact, 17-18 towns have seen 100% digitization. Jabalpur, Bhopal, etc, which have got a stay order from court, too are registering good progress. Even a city like Vishakhapatnam, which was at the bottom, today shows more than 30% digitization. There are no MSOs in the town, but they picked up the process very well,” says Varma, whose primary concern is that people should not be inconvenienced. He aims to strike a balance between the requirements of digitization and people’s preparedness for it. In cities such as Chennai and Kolkata, which still have analogue though the deadline for digitization was over months ago, show cause notices are being issued to MSOs. “We are going to take legal action against them,” asserts Varma, calling for complete transparency in the subscriber base. “Once the number of subscriptions is known, most things will get sorted out. It will bring revolution in the broadcast sector.”
SELF-PROMOS & REVENUE
Another issue playing out in the broadcast sector in the run-up to digitization is the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) diktat of 12 minutes of ads per hour of television programming. Broadcasters feel the need to curtail self- promotional ads from the cap as it is in the consumer’s interest to know about upcoming programmes. However, Varma is clear that the 12-minute limit means 10 minutes of pure commercial advertisements and two minutes of self-promotion. “Now the issue is whether the two minutes should be extra or budgeted for within the 12-minute ad limit. Broadcasters have raised this issue and we will address it,” assures Varma. But what about 24x7 news channels - do they too stick to the limit of two minutes per hour to advertise themselves and inform viewers about programmes? Varma does not see the time as adequate or inadequate, if linked to the benefit of digitization. “There is no hard and fast rule or regulation, it evolves over a period of time. Let us imagine a situation, where thanks to impact of digitization, you have larger monies coming from subscription base - then one minute is enough.” His hopes ride high on the revenue model in the television industry changing in the next few months as a result of digitization. “Once more revenue starts coming in from the subscription stream, broadcasters’ dependence on advertising will be reduced. That will make a difference,” he adds.
ASCENDING AUCTIONS
On another front, Radio operators are apparently not happy with the ascending electronic auction method for FM licences, and are looking at the MIB to give them an alternative as the Phase III auctions approach. “I don’t see that majority of the radio operators have opposed ascending auctions,” observes Varma. “One section of the present licensees had written to the Ministry that the process adopted for Phase II auctions should actually be made applicable for Phase III. But e-auctions are in the interest of complete transparency and will ensure that nobody questions the whole process. It is what the Cabinet has decided, and it is what we are going to do.” He does not think e-auctions will in any way impede better bids coming in: his logic is that if people find potential for FM stations in any city, they will bid. “So e-auction is the best way and it will leave no room for criticism,” he says.
ALL FOR A GOOGLE HANGOUT
Meanwhile, the MIB – and Varma - have kept up pace with the changing communication scenario in the digital era. Recently, the Finance Minister participated in a Google hangout with the public. On whether there is a chance of the I&B Ministry engaging in Google hangouts with broadcasters and MSOs to discuss digitization, Varma says: “Yes, it is in the pipeline. We already organized a Twitter conference a couple of months back, which was a huge success. In the coming month, we are looking forward to a Google hangout. I’ll also consider AIR on the hangout.”
‘BARC will put in place an alternative TV rating system by March 2014’
Tricky issues always turn up before Secretary, MIB, Uday Varma in the course of a day’s work. Here are excerpts from a conversation with Abid Hasan in which he tries to explain some of them:
Q] The MIB TRP Committee gave the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) recognition. But this does not seem to have moved forward much. What is the status of BARC and why is it taking so much time?
I think there is considerable progress on BARC. Last week, I held a meeting and was promised that BARC would be able to put in place an alternative TV rating system by March 2014. We would be creating history if BARC is really able to do so. It will be unique and I don’t think anywhere in the world there is a body of broadcasters and advertising agencies coming together and creating a credible, dependable and transparent television rating system. The government would intervene in this matter only when people really want us to come in, whatever may be the case. The fact remains that we need a television rating system which is much better than what it is today.
Q] TRAI has just released a consultation paper on TV viewership ratings. What will be the I&B Ministry’s role in regulating television ratings, given the controversies around it in recent years? What will be the nature of recommended guidelines/accreditation mechanism?
Let us see what the TRAI recommendation is. We have asked TRAI to develop some kind of an accreditation system; we should be able to fulfill certain criteria. If those criteria are spelt out, then we know that for any agency, this is the bottomline. We can prescribe people meters and several other parameters, to bring more transparency and credibility in the system. We have a system which is far from satisfactory. So we need to do something about it. TAM ratings concern people who want to advertise and people who do advertise data certainly have a public interest. For any sector to grow in an orderly manner, it is essential that some bottom line feature of any TV ratings generating agency should be prescribed.
Q] The government is considering giving the Press Council of India (PCI) more teeth by amending the 1978 Act. Do you think it will affect the freedom of expression for journalists as already there are self-regulatory bodies and PCI too has enough powers?
Giving more teeth to PCI is still under consideration. Concern has been raised in Parliament. The Standing Committee on IT and Information & Broadcasting has also expressed concern. There has been concern in some quarters about paid news. The issue of giving more teeth to PCI has arisen in the context of the paid news syndrome and it is a very complicated issue. All aspects are being mulled over by the Election Commission, Law Ministry and group of ministers. The process is going to take time and has to evolve after the widest possible consultation with the stakeholders.
Q] We have long been hearing of changes in Prasar Bharati to make it more competitive. Please tell us more about that.
The government has been facing that question for quite a long time. Last year was a remarkable year as far as Prasar Bharati is concerned. The issue of employees is settled - we decided that they will have to continue to be government employees. The second significant thing that happened is that we have literally cleaned the books of Prasar Bharati and all former loans have been paid off. In future, all the money that Prasar Bharati will receive will be under grant, not loan. We have waived off all spectrum charges, which they have to pay to DOT.
Recently, the government agreed to foot the salary bill of Prasar Bharati for the next five years, and henceforth, salary and other expenses would be looked after by the government. In addition, we have set up a committee under Sam Pitroda to look at its functioning how it could actually be working as a real public broadcaster.
Q] The inter-connect agreement is still an issue with broadcasters and cable operators. What is the current scenario?
Yes, it will continue to be an issue for some time as when digitization was not there, there was an assumed number of consumers and that whole model was based on a clumsy information system. That system benefited everybody to some extent because of the lack of transparency. Stakeholders in broadcast are getting more mature. So, increasingly the quality of interconnect agreements will become better but it has to be an evolutionary process. Today, broadcasters are paying less carriage fee than they were paying earlier – 20% compared to 40 % earlier. MSOs too are paying more to broadcasters now compared to payment before digitization.
Q] Talking of Radio, In the current base price policy, there is speculation that certain towns that do not have private FM may have to pay more if the base price is decided on the basis of the highest bid received in the same town from the same category in Phase III auctions?
This is kind of a guess and it is anticipation; it may be correct or may be wrong. Out of 839 towns, let’s suppose if we buy this argument that there may not be many bids, but it doesn’t matter. It’s a process and if we realize that out of 839 towns, there are X number of cities where the base price is just not low enough to attract bids, it can always be changed. So we are actually questioning the process by evoking some instances where there could be some difficulty. The majority of the towns would be able to get competitive bids and we should be able to auction those towns. There still remains a question of towns which are not being auctioned, so those will be addressed when we reach that stage.
Q] Talking of your tenure so far as the I&B Secy, what are some of the things that you would see as accomplishments and what are the big challenges you faced?
Social media was a big challenge and we made progress on it… something very innovative. Digitization, of course, was a big challenge and expansion of FM radio services. We have been able to do better internal planning and better utilization of resources made available to us. By and large, we created a coordination synergy in different media.
STANDPOINT
ON 10+2 AD CAP AND SELF-PROMOTION BY BROADCASTERS
One can understand if the 12-minute ad cap is extended to 13 or 15 minutes. But why does it become 30-35 minutes on some channels? Nobody can justify it. Just because your business model isn’t working, you cannot do 55 minutes of advertising and five minutes of news content.
ON AD CAP TO BE REMOVED FROM LIVE SPORTS TELECASTS
I have not seen a definite proposal by any of the broadcasters seeking that sports channels should be treated separately. But if I see some logic in doing that, we will be willing to consider.
ON PRASAR BHARTI BEING A GOVT CHANNEL
After all, the government also wants to projects its viewpoint and our own experience is private channels have been less than fair to the government. Lots of thing that the government does are never covered by private channels.
ON PLAN TO LAUNCH A 24-HOUR NEWS CHANNEL ON AIR
We have 24x7 news channels on private television, then why can we not have one on AIR? The challenge is technology - unlike television, once it is uplinked, downlink footprints will be all over the country. On AIR, there are some modes such as FM, medium and short pay. All these transmissions have different calibers. We are trying to work out a way to cover a large part of the country by launching in one single frequency.
Feedback: abid.hasan@exchange4media.com
