With bills worth over Rs. 3 crore pending, private news channels are locked in an argument with Sansad Bhavan over whether they should have to pay for the use of Lok Sabha TV's Parliament feed.
The public broadcaster — funded from the Lok Sabha budget — is the only TV channel permitted to set up cameras in the House. When Parliament is in session, its proceedings are broadcast live on the channel.
On an average day, private news channels are only interested in using a short clip or two from Parliament in their bulletins, and this is available free of charge.
However, on certain occasions — budget and rail budget speeches, Presidential addresses, no-confidence motions, and special debates — news channels carry long stretches of uninterrupted feed from LSTV. Since 2008, the public broadcaster has been charging private channels Rs. 1 lakh for each of these. For a Rs. 3 lakh package, channels are free to use any event feed for one year.
But the channels are refusing to pay, saying the feed should be provided free “in national interest.” Between 2008 and 2011, the unpaid bills have piled up and now amount to Rs. 3.2 crore and counting, according to sources at LSTV. In contrast, bills worth a measly Rs. 35 lakh have been paid so far.
“Private news channels mint money during the budget, but they are not willing to pay us such a nominal charge,” complained a senior official. “We charge them just Rs. 1 lakh. What is that in comparison with how much they charge for advertising?”
Of the 55 channels — including a few news websites — which covered the 2009-10 budget speech using Lok Sabha TV feed, only six have cleared their bills. Most of those are websites, including rediff.com, E18.com and Virtual Studio. Business channel CNBC and Zee also paid for the Hindi feed. All the major players have banded together and refused to pay up.
The spat is now being considered by Speaker Meira Kumar and the 15 MPs who constitute LSTV's Advisory Council. The private channels have expressed confidence that the Speaker can be convinced to waive the pending bills.
In a letter on the issue, News Broadcasters Association secretary-general Annie Joseph made the case that LSTV is a public broadcaster and has the responsibility to provide the feed as a matter of public interest. Her letter also hinted at discrimination against the electronic media vis-à-vis print, pointing out that newspaper journalists have access to the Lok Sabha and government-issued press releases in order to do their job, while TV journalists are not allowed to set up their cameras in the House.
Ms. Joseph also invoked the provisions of the Copyright Act, which allows “the use, consistent with fair dealing, of excerpts of… a broadcast in the reporting of current events.”
LSTV officials are not convinced. “We have no problem with them using ‘excerpts,' but they want to carry the whole speech. How is that fair dealing?” said a senior official.
He pooh-poohed the notion that LSTV must share its feed in public interest. “The public has access to Parliamentary coverage on our channel, which is carried by every cable operator,” he said. In fact, LSTV is watched by as many people as its private competitors, with a reach that even overtakes major English news channels in several markets when Parliament is in session.
Asked for his views, the managing editor of a leading English news channel took the offensive. “[LSTV] have got to decide: are they a public service or a commercial service? If you're a public service broadcaster, then you must share your feed in public interest. But if you want us to pay for it, then you are a commercial service, and you must pay carriage fees like everyone else,” he said, complaining that cable operators are mandated to carry LSTV without any fee. “It cuts both ways.”
A senior channel head denied that private channels, which want free feed, are then making money off it by selling advertising slots. “We are not selling advertisements just for the budget. That is just one story in a whole day,” he said.
LSTV's charges are a form of “double taxation,” argued the editor-in-chief of another major channel. “I'm sure LSTV is also subsidised by the government to cover Parliament. That is money coming from the taxpayer, so why should they be paid again for that feed?” he asked, adding that government broadcaster Doordarshan, which used to cover and share the Parliament feed before LSTV came into existence in 2006, never charged private channels.
In fact, LSTV is funded from Parliament's budget, rather than through the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting as DD was, but the money does come from the government exchequer at the end of the day. The channel's operating expenditure amounts to Rs. 8.5 crore per annum, and it makes about Rs. 5 crore from advertisements or “awareness campaigns” run by government departments and PSUs. Since it does not accept private advertisers, its only hope for additional revenue rests on the fee it charges from channels carrying its feed.
