FM radio firms renew demand to broadcast news

Private FM radio broadcasters reiterated a demand that they be allowed to transmit news and current affairs content in an open house discussion held by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

Private FM radio broadcasters reiterated a demand that they be allowed to transmit news and current affairs content in an open house discussion held by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). India does not allow private radio broadcasters to publish their own news, a continuing prohibition that is rare in democracies.

“Print is allowed [to publish] news, television is allowed, digital [industry] is allowed… some are regulated, and some are unregulated; but not allowing news on radio is crippling the industry,” RedFM’s Chief Operating Officer Nisha Narayanan said during the discussion. The Supreme Court had questioned the Union Government on the prohibition on broadcasting news through radio in 2017.

“If India wants to be a vishwaguru, and also a beacon of democracy, it is strange” to not allow news on private radio channels, Uday Chawla, the Secretary General of the Association of Radio Operators of India (AROI) said. Radio stations in countries like Nepal and Bangladesh had been “free for ages” to transmit news, Mr. Chawla pointed out.

Multiple radio firms’ representatives said during the discussion that they needed to be allowed to broadcast more news than just the ‘capsules’ offered to them by Prasar Bharati, which operates All India Radio. Ms. Narayanan said that even if broadcasting news in a full fledged way in radio wasn’t allowed, authorities should consider at least letting radio stations translate the capsules to local languages and read the approved news in their own voices.

Operators also argued that the regulatory terms of running radio stations were putting pressure on their finances. “In certain markets, the cost of the license fee alone is coming to 15–18% [of revenues],” Ashit Kukian, Chief Executive Officer of Music Broadcast Limited, which runs Radio City said, seeking a cap on such fees at 4% of gross revenues of radio stations.

Syed Waseem Ahmed, director of Purnima Broadcast, a radio broadcasting firm in the North East, said that the pandemic had weighed heavily on the industry’s finances, and that interest had built up in the time since the pandemic, when revenues were low. “I request … that some kind of financial assistance in terms of relief in the license fee during the two years of the pandemic is granted,” Mr. Ahmed said.

Smartphone makers and telcos were largely skeptical of a proposal by TRAI to mandate including FM receivers in mobile phones. “There have been serious headwinds in last two, three years in terms of supply chain constraints,” Saurabh Malhotra, a representative of Bharti Airtel said during the discussion. “The cost of devices for an average consumer needs to be under control for mass adoption.”