The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has received approval from the Union Cabinet to issue policy guidelines for the much awaited Headend-in-the-Sky (HITS) system. These guidelines provide a framework within which the HITS service providers have to provide services in the country. The guidelines do not mandate the cable operators or the subscribers to necessarily obtain signals from a HITS platform and they can continue with the existing analog system.

HITS operators can uplink from Indian soil only and will have to install Subscriber Management System (SMS) and encryption system. The guidelines further stipulate that total direct and indirect foreign investment including FDI is allowed up to 74 percent however prior approval from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) will be required if the FDI is beyond 49 percent.

FM radio players are hoping for clarity on issues that are holding up the rollout of phase III policy, expected to be announced in January 2010. The radio industry expects the policy to address issues like raising the FDI cap, dispute over music royalty, allowing multiple licenses and multi city networking, and clearing news broadcasts in limited formats. The industry has further requested the Government to extend their existing 10 year radio licenses by another five years before announcing the FM phase III policy.

Based on the data provided by various stakeholders such as broadcasters, aggregator, DTH operators, multi system operators, cable operators, and consumer advocacy groups along with the information available with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the authority has arrived at the representative operational figures of various stakeholders in the value chain. The authority intends to use this data in the tariff fixation exercise through the consultation process.

BES EXPO 2010 is scheduled from January 29–31, 2010 in New Delhi and will focus on terrestrial and satellite broadcasting providing an opportunity to the companies and will showcase their latest products and technologies for content production and distribution.

We wish all our readers a very happy new year!