 "Media honchos express dissatisfaction with growth rate of industry")
“Government is putting in place processes to make the e-auction as transparent as possible with regards to the third phase of FM radio auctions. An inter-ministerial committee is looking at FDI in media and a decision is expected soon,” Tewari said on the sidelines of the CII Big picture Summit.
In addition, the I&B Ministry has also sought industry inputs on providing incentives to increase the number of cinema screens across the country.
More From This Section
“There is a lack of cinema screens in India and we believe that the industry could provide us with inputs and work with state governments to provide incentives to improve infrastructure,” Tewari said.
The ministry is also expecting the recommendations of the Justice Mudgal Committee report to overhaul the present Cinematograph Act by mid-October this year.
The two day Confederation of Indian Industry summit in New Delhi is expected to study various problems in the domestic media & entertainment Industry including recent regulations like the cap on advertisements in the broadcasting sector and recommendations from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) regarding the collection of viewership data. A report on the industry by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and PwC was also released on Friday which pegs the size of the industry at Rs 2.44 lakh crore by 2017, growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 18 per cent.
Uday Shankar, chief executive officer of STAR India, pointed out that Indian media & entertainment would take another 15 years to become a $100-billion industry if it continued to grow at 15 per cent.“It is unacceptable to grow at that pace and we cannot allow that. The collective impact of regulation and tyranny of minority which opposes content has affected innovation and we need to ensure that we are not held back,” he said.
India’s broadcasting sector currently has more than 800 channels while the number of newspapers in the country has grown to 80,000, led by vernacular dailies. Meanwhile, Uday Shankar also pointed out that the restrictions on tariff have hindered news channels from producing good quality of content.
Tewari also pointed out that the news channels in India would need help with their distribution scheme and said that the government has been very proactively working to understand the bottlenecks with regard to distribution. News channels have been complaining against a Trai order to cap advertisement to 12 minutes.
Ronnie Screwvala, chief executive officer of Disney UTV said that the industry's desire to grow by 18 per cent is ambitious, saying that a fair amount of progress has been made so far, but that there was a large opportunity to take it to the next level. “One of the biggest challenges that faces the industry is attracting talent. We should also, as an industry, take a pause and plan on how to go ahead in the future. If we can take a year to plan out our future for the next two years, it would have a great impact,” Screwvala said.