Govt open to carriage of agency news on FM radio at later stage: I&B secretary

NEW DELHI: The Government has said it is not ruling out carriage of news by FM radio channels based on reports from recognised news agencies.

Information and Broadcasting Secretary Uday Kumar Varma said that news on ?as is where is? basis would be permitted from All India Radio in the FM Phase III. However, this can later be relaxed to introduce news from other sources.

?We begin with AIR and then we go and start allowing more and more news... I do foresee that in next five-seven years time, the things happening the way we expect them to happen, then there is nothing stopping radio to have news,? he said.

He was responding to a question as to why the government did not allow radio channels to use news feed of recognised agencies.

Varma said that though news was not currently allowed, radio channels still provided cricket scores and often radio jockeys also commented on current events.

He indicated that monitoring the news channels was the major reason for not permitting FM channels to broadcast their own news.

Expansion of radio through FM Phase III is on the top priority of the government and it had been decided that an ascending e-auction would be conducted.

Varma said that there were issues like choosing an auctioneer, a migration fee and a Telecom Regulatory Authority of India report which suggested reducing channel spacing for radio channels had to be resolved.

The government would also pursue expansion of FM radio in border areas and interiors as this was a priority area.

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) had organised a meeting of radio CEOs.

Reacting to some members of the radio industry that the industry was facing difficult times, he said this was not true and there was a consistent ten per cent CAGR growth in the sector.

Taking part in the discussions, several speakers like Indian Institute of Mass Communications Director General Sunit Tandon and Amit Khanna of Reliance Entertainment said shortage of trained manpower was a major hurdle to the growth of radio.

Khanna said that monitoring news on radio appeared to be the main concern of the government, as it was easier to monitor television news.

Tandon said that IIMC had the infrastructure to train personnel but needed industry collaboration for this purpose. He said IIMC had the mandate for training personnel for community radio, but funding was a problem where the industry could come in.

Radiowalla CEO and co-founder Anil Srivatsa said he was prepared to collaborate with institutions to train personnel in internet radio.