NEW DELHI: The ministry of information & broadcasting has set up a centre for monitoring television channels, which is being handled by the Broadcast Engineers Consultancy India Ltd, a government undertaking, and Dish TV has given more than 50 STBs for the set up.
Industry sources told indiantelevision.com that the set-up has been created last week and is running from the Becil office in the Indraprastha Complex, a sprawling complex sitting on the banks of the Yamuna river here |
“This has nothing to do with Prasar Bharati. Becil is doing the monitoring and Dish TV has given the STBs at a cost but no charges for subscription,” a source revealed. Sources said that the set-up, which has drawn much flak from the news channels, has been created at a cost of Rs 200 million and monitors 100 channels. Eventually, it will monitor 200 channels. The sets are using a software called Multiviewer, supplied by a foreign company called Avertz, and in this technology, each screen can be split into four channels to be monitored simultaneously. |
The set-up has been pushed by the fact that the High Court of Delhi has been repeatedly castigating news channels for malicious reporting, and had asked the MIB to place before it a Code of Conduct.
Earlier, the court had suggested that the ministry could think of vetting every sting operation before it is aired, but it had not taken a call on that, since it was only a suggestion, and the government did not want to be seen as being dictatorial with the media. |