Broadcasters seek PMO’s help on permissions, high processing fee

The Indian Broadcasting Foundation has written to the Prime Minister’s Office seeing a revision of some of the policies of the ministry of information and broadcasting including the levy of processing fee for temporary uplink of live events and the need for security clearances to start new channels.

IBF has said in a report to the PMO, seen by Hindustan Times, that delays in permissions to start new channels to ending the auction of free slots to private broadcasters on the DD FreeDish go against the very spirit of the ‘ease of doing business.’

The report, submitted last month, claims various operations of television channels including setting up of new channels despite valid permissions, change of name or logo, and change of teleport among others “have come to a complete halt”.

MIB did not respond to queries e-mailed on Monday.

IBF was established in 1999 and has both news and non-news channels as its members and provides research-based legislative inputs to the government.

Highlighting the delay in operationalisation of channels, IBF sought a time limit of 6-8 weeks be stipulated for MHA to submit a report on the security clearance sought by the MIB.

IBF is also not happy with the MIB’s December 2017 order, introducing a processing fee per channel per day for temporary uplink of a live event of ~50,000 for regional channels and ~1 lakh for national channels.

IBF has also asked the PMO to direct the MIB to come out with an “objective policy” on allotting vacant slots on DD FreeDish to protect the interests of Prasar Bharti and the broadcasters interested in having their channels carried on DD FreeDish.

Earlier, vacant slots on DD FreeDish were allotted to private broadcasters through e-auctions, but the practice was put on hold in 2017. While the MIB has stated it helped private broadcasters earn more money and did not benefit Prasar Bharati, IBF has countered the charge.

NEWDELHI: