I Am Aware Of The Pitfalls Of Reneging Digitisation Deadline: Manish Tewari

Government is very much confident in keeping up with the deadline for Phase II. Information and Broadcasting minister Manish Tewari has made it clear that the extension of deadline could turn out to be more harmful. He said that “I was under tremendous amount of pressure to relax the deadline of phase I, but we decided that we would stay the course. I knew the pitfalls of reneging on deadline and the implications it has on the entire process.”

All the Stakeholders must be on board

Mr. Tewari was giving a keynote address at Infocom–Assocham Mets Forum 2013, he informed that a social contract would have been consensual way of implementing digitisation. The digitisation was eventually between broadcasters, multi-system operators (MSOs), local cable operators (LCOs) and consumers. He also stressed on the need to take all the stakeholders on board for smooth implementation of DAS (Digital Addressable System) going forward in the remaining phases. “No stakeholder in this process should feel shortchanged and that’s a responsibility that the industry has to take upon itself so that all the stakeholders are on board and it’s a win-win situation for all” told Mr. Tewari. 

Speed Up BARC Process

He also emphasized ‘that the success of Digitization and a viable Audience Measurement System would depend on the measures taken holistically by all key stakeholders especially the Broadcasting Industry. The initiation of such measures would ensure an enabling environment leading to changes in the media landscape in the future. For an effective implementation, the industry would have to put in place a roadmap that included critical measures reiterating the growth prospects in the future. In case of the audience measurement mechanism, the Broadcasting Industry would have to initiate measures to mainstream the BARC process so as to ensure an effective measurement method of audience tastes.

New Media Revolution

Elaborating further, he said that in the current scenario the idea of convergence had to be examined within an overall framework that took into account techno-commercial parameters. Synergy between different tools and platforms would provide the opportunity for the Media and Entertainment industry to reach out to newer audiences and engage with them. The Minister further added that the advent of New Media tools and platforms have revolutionalised the Global Media space which had led to the democratization of the Information Space.

GST to sort out film industry's tax issues

With a section of the film industry demanding relief on taxes, the government said that the advent of the goods and services tax (GST) regime will sort out most of the taxation issues affecting the film industry. Information and Broadcasting minister Manish Tewari said the government was considering streamlining the entire film certification process in the wake of some complaints to make it more transparent and user friendly. Tiwari stated that the Centre has moved to set up a judicial committee to have a relook at the Cinematograph Act following the row over Kamal Hasan's movie ‘Vishwaroopam’, to make it more robust and ensure that movies do not get stuck after clearances by the film certification board.

Phase III FM radio auction in 2013

A high-powered ministerial panel has cleared the way for Information and Broadcasting Ministry to conduct auction of FM radio licenses in Phase III for 839 channels, which will be completed this year. In his statement I&B Secretary Uday Kumar Varma said that the ministry had approached the EGoM requesting for some changes in bid RFPs (request for proposals). The change in RFP approved was that FM auction will be done on basis of lump sum money instead of a percentage of the total revenues. He also informed that the second phase of digitisation is on track which will see 38 cities go digital by March end.

Source: http://cablequest.org/news/digitization-news/item/1921-i-am-aware-of-the-pitfalls-of-reneging-digitisation-deadline-manish-tewari.htmlSource: http://cablequest.org/news/digitization-news/item/1921-i-am-aware-of-the-pitfalls-of-reneging-digitisation-deadline-manish-tewari.html

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