NEW DELHI: Satellite television channels uplinking from overseas have been given six months to meet the conditions of the downlinking policy that was notified by the Government on Friday.

As per the policy guidelines for downlinking television channels, "no cable operator or Direct-to-Home service provider shall, after the expiry of 180 days from the date of this notification, carry or include in his cable/DTH network any television channel that has not been registered under these guidelines."

Introduced for the first time since the television boom in India, the policy seeks to provide for better regulation of channels uplinking from overseas. Media companies eager to downlink their channels into India have to be registered in the country under the Indian Companies Act, 1956, irrespective of their equity structure, foreign ownership or management control. For downlinking into India, companies must have a minimum net worth of Rs. 1.5 crore in the case of a single channel and Rs. 1 crore for every additional channel.

The policy also mandates that news and current affairs channels cannot carry advertisements aimed at Indian viewers. The news and current affairs channels downlinking into India have to be the standard international channel and should not be designed specifically for Indian audiences.

All channels downlinking into India will have to subscribe to the Programme and Advertising Code prescribed under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995.

Besides, as per the new policy, television rights holders of cricket matches will have to share signals of all India fixtures and every final — irrespective of where they are played — with Doordarshan on a revenue-sharing basis. This mandatory sharing of telecast rights with Doordarshan is applicable with retrospective effect; the only difference being that in cases where rights have already been purchased the rights holder will not have to share signals of semi-finals — in which India does not feature — with the public broadcaster. As for fixtures where rights have not been purchased, the rights holder will have to share feed of all semi-finals and finals with Doordarshan.

The revenue-sharing model provides for 75 per cent of the revenue going to the rights holder with Doordarshan keeping the remaining 25 per cent. Such matches will be shown by Doordarshan only on its terrestrial network and DTH platform.

In the case of other sports events of national importance, the Government has opted for a regime wherein the mandatory sharing of feed with the public broadcaster would be decided by the Sports Ministry in consultation with sports bodies and rights holders.

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