"Broadcasters are against the cross-media restrictions and sectoral caps. This would completely stunt the growth of the industry"
	-AP Parigi, MD & CEO, Entertainment Network India
	"The proposed bill has the capacity to hurt the industry as the new guidelines are not enabling but disabling"
	-Sunil Lulla, CEO, Times Global Broadcasting
	"The government should a take a re-look at cross-media restrictions. The sector equity cap is the worst form of piece-meal legislation"
	-Amit Khanna, chairman, Reliance Entertainment

Leading broadcasters have already chipped in funds in capital and resources as per the existing policy and the proposed bill would result in a major restructuring of business models with serious financial implications.

Big Players too in a Spot
Through the draft bill, the government has tried to encourage the local production houses to flourish well. According to the proposed bill, the share of content produced in India shall not be less than 15% of the total content that a channel broadcasts during each week. This is expected to ensure more focus on local content rather than the outsourced content from abroad. In fact, Indian animation companies have been demanding such solutions to solve their issues.

However, some foreign channels with lots of foreign films and programs will be unable to meet the guidelines. Besides, leading channels such as Cartoon Network, Discovery, Animal Planet, National Geography, History Channel, Travel and Living, etc will be under pressure to look for the prescribed percentage of content generated locally from India.

The share of public service/social messaging through advertisements and other promotional materials/messages shall also not be less than 10% of the total commercial time of a channel during the week.

On mandatory basis, TV channels will have to adhere to a 15% prescribed percentage of content produced locally. In addition to this, the share of public service and socially relevant program content cannot be less than 10% of the total program content per week. A part of the industry wants to boost local production, while foreign movie channels such as HBO, Star Movies, Hallmark, and others would not be able to meet the content guidelines. For them, it will be quite difficult to create a niche in this highly competitive market place.

There are several ambiguities and the government is yet to address such issues. According to FICCI, the industry needs answers to, and clarifications on several questions: Would dubbed programs qualify to be local content? What will constitute socially relevant programming and when does it need to run? The Government also needs to specify whether the 15% content cap relates to fresh domestic prime time content or to recycled content as well.

The DD Show
The entire industry is apprehensive of the proposed privileges of Doordarshan as the public broadcaster. This is via two provisions of the bill that include: the must-carry clause for cable operators, whereby 3 to 5 DD channels must be carried in the prime band; and the content sharing privileges with respect to sports events that are of 'national importance'. Broadcasters with multiple channels like Star will be the ones that are going to face the music, as cable operators are not under any obligation from private broadcasters.

DD cannot be called a public broadcaster and be exempted from the ambit of law and that of the regulator, as long as it competes with private broadcasters commercially. That is, as long as it accepts advertising. DD competes with broadcasters for advertising revenue, and even gets paid for carrying government advertising.

The mandatory sharing of sports feed with DD would certainly ensure more reach and coverage to masses for programs of national interest. The advertising revenue sharing however should be explicitly defined, according to FICCI.

Limited Scope, Limited Vision
The draft bill is also putting restrictions on the maximum total number of channels that can be owned. Network operators like cable and DTH operators will not be able to offer services to more than 15% of the total pay TV subscriber base in a city.

This could encourage under-declaration resulting in revenue loss to the exchequer. Also, this could prove to be restrictive in terms of cable industry consolidation.

Every cable operator will be forced to carry Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha channels and at least two Doordarshan channels and one regional language channel of the state within the prime band. This number game will put extreme pressure on the cable industry to carry private channels.

Future Tense!
An increasingly sophisticated Indian audience, taking cue from international exposure, now benchmarks television entertainment with the best of the world when it comes to quality and treatment. Technology is driving rapid change, and India needs to take into account multiple delivery platforms for the content stream that we know as broadcasting. In the last two years we have moved from only analog cable and limited DTH to analog cable, digital cable, expanded DTH, mobile TV, Web TV and IPTV, and each of them continues to evolve. Some of these platforms are in their infancy, but they are all out of the testing stage and are already commercial offerings. India is on the threshold of the opportunity to create comprehensive, path-breaking, forward-looking, future-oriented legislation that takes cognizance of technology and is a model for the world.

According to a PricewaterhouseCoopers-FICCI survey, the entertainment and media industry, which is pegged at Rs 43,700 crore, is likely to grow at a compounded annual rate of 18% over the next few years. Of this, television occupies over 40% market share at Rs 19,120 crore and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 22% to cross Rs 51,900 crore by 2011 with a 51% market share in the overall entertainment & media pie. But there are no strong signs of achieving this target.

The industry is now ready to advance to the next stage of evolution, grasping at opportunities presented by the digital age, completely changing the home entertainment landscape. If the government and broadcasters cannot sit together and reach an amicable solution shortly, the industry is bound to suffer.

Baburajan K
baburajank@cybermedia.co.in