TV channels to broadcast 30 minutes of ‘national interest’ content daily: Centre

The Centre has approved new guidelines under which it has become obligatory for channels to telecast content of national interest and public importance.

After 11 years, the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting approved the guidelines for the uplinking and downlinking of TV channels yesterday. The guidelines were first issued in 2005 and revised in 2011.

Television channels will have to broadcast 30 minutes of public interest content every day on themes of national interest such as education and spread of literacy, agriculture and rural development, health and family welfare, science and technology, the welfare of women, welfare of the weaker sections of the society, protection of the environment and of cultural heritage and national integration.

"It is not that the government will give any programmes to the television channels for broadcasting under public interest content. The channels are free to create their own content on the themes mentioned in the guidelines," I&B Secretary Apurva Chandra said.

The guidelines allow limited liability partnerships and companies to allow uplinking of foreign channels from Indian teleports for beaming content in countries covered by the satellite footprint.

The move is expected to allow television channels of Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal to uplink from India, instead of Singapore, the preferred uplinking hub for channels beamed in the subcontinent.

Currently, only 30 channels are uplinked from India out of the total 897 registered with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

"Requirement for seeking permission for the live telecast of events has been done away with; only prior registration of events to be telecast live would be necessary," Sanjiv Shankar, Joint Secretary (Broadcasting) said in a presentation to the media here.

He said there would be no requirement of prior permission for a change of language or conversion of a mode of transmission from Standard Definition (SD) to High Definition (HD) or vice versa.

The channel will only have to inform the ministry about the changes, he said.

The new guidelines state that a company can use news gathering equipment other than Digital Satellite News Gathering (DSNG), such as optic fibre, back pack, mobile, for which no separate permission would be necessary.

The guidelines state that electronic news gathering devices can be used.