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NDA government has second thoughts on DTH broadcasts

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government is digging in its heels on the question of allowing satellite television channels to be beamed direct to people's homes, warning of a cultural invasion of unbridled pornography.

The government's reticence has been roundly criticised by the electronic media, which accuses officials of resorting to tired cliches to keep the door closed on direct-to-home broadcasting.

"Our society is not prepared for pornography. It's an area we have to regulate in some way," Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley argued at a recent debate on DTH technology.

Individual satellite dishes are banned in India, where all satellite broadcasts must be fed through government-licensed cable operators.

Of the 69 million Indian homes that have television, some 30 million are linked to a cable network.

But with demand growing for greater choice, the coalition government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee recently set up a ministerial group to draw up a consensus on DTH broadcasts.

Jaitley said the group would offer a "considered policy" to be incorporated in fresh broadcasting legislation.

"The benefits of improved technology cannot be denied to people, but there has to be a mechanism to regulate the functioning of channels," the minister said.

India, which began TV broadcasts in 1959, got its first cable network in 1989, but it was CNN which really opened the door to satellite telecasts in 1991 when it broadcast the first pictures from the Gulf War.

In just eight years, the number of domestic cable operators has soared from four to 70,000, with a total annual revenue of Rs 36 billion.

Roop Sharma, president of the Federation of Indian Cable Operators' Association, has ridiculed the government's policy on DTH broadcasts.

"I want to laugh over their bogey of cultural invasion. Look at the Hindi films of today; they are nothing but a new chapter in obscenity," said Sharma, who in 1989 became the first Indian woman to launch a cable network.

"In fact, it is we who have protested to the government over the past 10 years that so many cable networks are feeding channels that should be jammed," Sharma said.

According to Sharma, a government ban on broadcasting the Russian TB6 channel, the French TV5 and Pakistan's national PTV are openly flouted by some operators.

"It is thus sheer hypocrisy to argue that DTH will lead to a cultural invasion.

"It is a new technology and no one can stop it, although its success will depends on its economics and content, because cable is very cheap," Sharma said.

Leading media expert N Bhaskar Rao said the government's opposition to DTH reflected the anti-foreign ideology of BJP hardliners.

"The so-called cultural invasion worries are an alibi to cover the selfish motives of Indian politicians. This is just to satisfy the rightwing lobbies," said Rao, director of the Centre for Media Studies.

"We are being deprived of the opportunity to think big and the need today is to instal one regulatory mechanism for the entire telecommunications sector, mainly for technologies and monopolies, and allow DTH to enter," Rao said.

Sharma said the whole DTH debate could turn out to be a storm in a teacup as 84 per cent of local television sets are more than 10 years old and unable to access more than a dozen channels.

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