The information and broadcasting ministry has once again put the brakes on news and current affairs content on privately owned and operated Frequency Modulation (FM) channels in the country. The I&B ministry has said FM stations cannot air such content even in “snippet form” as it violates clause 1.4 and 23.4 of Grant of Permission Agreement signed by private operators.
Questions: Is it a good idea to prevent FM channels from airing news and current affairs? What purpose does the ban serve? Is the ban directed at preventing “immature” and “irresponsible” content from being broadcast? Or is it to prevent ordinary citizens, who can afford inexpensive FM radios, from hearing unfiltered news, as-is? When a news consumer is being bombarded with news from a variety of sources does it makes sense to keep the ban on?
To force people to depend on AIR for news & current affairs. Currently FM channels suck because they lack variety – only music.
I wonder why they gave permission to private news channels?
This must be the bright idea of some babu out there. Someone should challenge the order in a court of law.
This is a strange idea and one that defies imagination. There is something wrong with our I & B ministry and its functioning. Dasmunshi should try and set up a National Institute for Journalism in 2-3 places keeping in mind the severe shortage of good, or even average people in journalism especially print-and bring about a code of conduct, not waste time worrying about whether radio should broadcast news. There are other problems in journalism and broadcasting which need more attention.
P.S.: Can anyone here tell me about the town of Murdeshawar, in North KA? Due to offical reasons, I have to pay a visit to that town in October. Any info regarding it would be welcome. I am to stay at the RNS residency, anyone who can tell me-give me the unoffical prospectus of that hotel so to speak? Will heartily appreciate it. Googling will only give some dry facts and figures which I do not want.
Hey Sugata,
Visit http://www.team-bhp.com, register and post a query in Route-Travel-Queries forum. People there are helpful and will share their experience.
Regards,
FM is not a news channel. it is an entertainment channel hence why bother about news when hundreds are already engaged in distorting and
hyping business.
But it is time for a uniform news code for all mode of broadcast. In fact
Dasmushi should check the TV channels from explotation in fact misuse
of channels by politicians and publicity mongers. Moreover, there is need
to have some credibility and value for news without much hype. Singling
out FM is not fair.
FM channels were supposd to pose some kind of competition to AIR. Tjat has not happenned. Every channel is playing the same kind of music, even same songs and all the comperes sound as if they are in a hurry to say what they want to say and run. Every private TV channel is giving out news, thier own version of it. To ban news and current affairs on private radio is unneccessary.
All over the world, small community radio stations on FM channel are putting out specific shows- astation may do only rock music some one else only hip hop and some only chat shows. I wonder why our private stations have not thought of focussing on specific target audience and do what the audience wants. May be they thought they would get rich with the Ad money if they played mindless music hour after hour
During Emergency the AIR and the Television were the mpithpieces of the Government. A day may come when we go back to the same way. You have to believe what they say. You should not question. You should not air your opinions. KurigaLu saar naavu kurigaLu…..
As Induramesh says, given the way the FM stations are being run, it is not such a bad thing that the FM stations are not being allowed to broadcast news and current affairs. They could end up doing more damage than the “bhoot-pret” stuff on Hindi news channels. But there is nothing stopping AIR’s own FM stations from filling the breach. They are only too content peddling political piffle, sucking up to the I&B minister, and suchlike. What we need is for a truly public service broadcasting service, both in television and radio, that will free the airwaves from the ludicrous and the ridiculous, like the National Public Radio in the United States has done in the last few years.
Aatmasakshi, if one FM airs ‘bhoot-pret’ stuff, there will many other who will air quality stuff. You always have the option to choose. If you don’t like ‘bhoot-pret’ stuff don’t tune to that frequency. Those who get their daily dose of humour from those stuff, will tune to those channels :)
It is true that the choice is with the audience. The broadcasters are always told that the control is in the hands of the audience, earlier it was the tuner on the radio, now it is the remote control. It makes it all the more important for channels, both radio and tv to be responsible, accountable and bold enough to own up thier goofed up stories, the same way they wallow in self praise for every so called investigative report they put out. Mind you, as of today, it is only the news channels of TV. Private radio wouldn’t even dream of it.
First they auction off bandwidth to the highest bidding big business house. Then when the conglomerate tries to get back its investment by broadcasting mindless programming which allows them to peddle more stuff, they get pissed.
What are the rules about college/educational institutions/private broadcasting in India? If someone put together an FM tranmitter and broadcast for a couple of hours say in Jayanagar in Bangalore, would she/he be arrested? Even if the content is harmless (and maybe a little anarchist). Since there is still lots of channel space available in India there would be no danger of interfering with the big media houses’ frequencies.
How about an NPR like initiative in India? Anyone who has listened to it in the US will agree it is thought-provoking and entertaining at the same time – overall great food for thought. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR
Come to think of it, we are going to be deprived of the privilege of listening to endless rants and live coverages on Sanjay Dutt, Salman Khan and Shilpa Sheey…
AS & AG,
In the US, there are 100s of radio news channels but they all belong to only two very disparate classes. NPR and Rush Limbaugh class. Nothing in between.
In the NPR class, there is only NPR, But every idiot with a mic belongs in the RL class irrespective of his leanings.
NPR/PBS also maintain some independence through their own funds. and it will be extremely to replicate that in india.
but if they are able to the NPR/PBS quality programs it will be great.
One of the things about NPR/PBS is technically they have very high production quality, some thing that you cannot find in any other channel. Even stories about meth addicts make great film pieces. In fact their refusal to do MTV style cuts is prolly the reason they stand apart. Long lingering shots, great controlled texts.
The interviews in NPR are also like that, Terry Gross’ interviews — very conversational yet deep interviews. and she covers so much ground yet it does not appear that she is going through a set of questions.
oops! sorry for the typos.
i had this dream that churumuri would be the NPR-esque blog. It is wrt issues it covers, but i miss the local issues. please do a lot of local issues, local people.