Trai wants news on community radio

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Thursday recommended allowing news and current affairs on community radio stations. The regulator also said community radio operations in the country should be under Indian ownership and control.

It also recommended that an organisation should not be disqualified merely because it received public funds, as long as management control was not in the hands of the central or state governments.

"Banned organisations and their members should also be disqualified from holding a community radio licence," it added.

The regulator also recommended a licence period of five years with a provision for revocation of the licence by the government.

On funding these ventures, Trai recommended government funds, as well as grants, could be given to such radio stations. The regulator is also in favour of commercial advertising on these stations.

"The duration of advertisements that can be carried by community radio stations may be restricted to 5 minutes per hour of broadcast. However, these restriction on advertising time should not apply to advertisements generated within the community and where the advertising revenue comes from one of the community members," the regulator said.

In what may be a restriction on community radio stations operating on commercial lines, the regulator said no sponsored programmes should be permitted on such radio stations. However, they will be outside the purview of any licence fee.

But, these radio stations will have to follow the programme code of the All India Radio and private commercial broadcasters.

"The programmes should be in local language/dialect only and at least 50 per cent of the content should be generated by the community for which the station has been set up," the regulator said.

It also said these stations should be permitted to share broadcast infrastructure subject to the condition that at least half the total broadcast time should be utilised by the licensee to broadcast its own programmes.