MUST for TV: 30-min slot for 'national interest content' daily - What are Centre's revised guidelines

If you haven’t heard already, all your favourite Indian channels will now have to broadcast at least 30 minutes of ‘national interest content'- courtesy of revised government guidelines for television broadcasting. The Centre on Wednesday approved the ‘Guidelines for Uplinking and Downlinking of Satellite Television Channels in India, 2022.’ Under this, all channels airing in India, except for the foreign stations, will have to air content of socio-political importance for a minimum of 30 minutes.

According to the Information and Broadcasting Secretary Apurva Chandra, the new guidelines will ensure the ease of compliance for TV Channel permit holders and will promote ease of doing business by simplification of rules and procedures. It will also do away with various permissions that were earlier required for broadcasting.

“We have kept a provision that a 30-minute slot should be given for things of national importance or national interest; seven-right themes have been given for the same - women empowerment, agriculture, teaching," Apurva Chandra told ANI adding, “So given the obligations to broadcast this, this is a new thing we will be consulting the channels will come out with more detailed guidelines."

The revised guidelines also scrap the prior permission rule for a live broadcast of content.

The new guidelines allow limited liability partnerships and companies to allow uplinking of the foreign channels from Indian teleports for beaming content in countries covered by the satellite footprint. As per the officials, currently, only 30 channels are uplinked from India out of the total 897 registered with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

The television channels will no longer be required to seek permission for the live telecast of content and event. However, prior registration of events to be telecast live will still be necessary.

Under the new guidelines, there will also be no requirement of prior permission for a change of language or conversion of the mode of transmission from Standard Definition (SD) to High Definition (HD). The channel will only have to inform the Centre about the changes.

The revised guidelines also grant permission for a news agency for a five-year period against one year at present.

These guidelines were last amended almost 11 years back in 2011. This is the first revision in broadcasting guidelines since.