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Raju Subedi |
Raju Subedi
Evolution of Television in Nepal
If we reverse to history, John Logie Baird gave
the world’s first public television demonstration of a mechanical television
apparatus to approximately 40 members of the Royal Institution at his
laboratory on Frith Street of Scotland on January 23, 1926.
(www.wikipedia.com).These was images of living human faces, not outlines or
silhouettes, with complete tonal gradations of light and shade. World War-II is
considered the last and final birth of television. In the case of Nepal,
Television was a subject of debating in Parliament in 1980.Nepal government
finally allowed television in Nepal and it was taken as a study, feasibility
under the information and broadcasting. Nepal television was former test
broadcast successfully in December 31, 1983. Nepal Television made a position
only one channel in across the Nepal for 15 to 16 year. Nepal government
brought some changed in information act on the 2001which help to introduce a
private television channel. Channel Nepal start television station as a first
private television focused on the entertainment. After some year Image channel
and Kantipur television come which carry mix package (News & entertainment
program). Nowadays Nepal has more than 16 television channels running as a
national television, some are regional television and many more are on the way.
Television broadcasting is the
new phenomenon in Nepal. Beginning in December 1985, the state-owned Nepal
Television Corporation began airing programs. Viewers often used satellite dishes
to receive international broadcasts from CNN and the BBC in addition to Indian
and foreign programs. Access to the media is increasing as the number
increased. Television media are limited basically in urban areas as the
electricity facility is only for 20% of total population. Events are
thoroughly covered in the latest news bulletins with fresh visuals by nepali
commercial media. It is likely observed that the use of the fresh visual is
high these days in the nepali media. After this study, finally i can say that
kantipur television ownership pattern is the private, partnership among the Non
Resdient Nepali, prominent media businessman and the real state businessperson
guided by the profit. The investor main interest is gain the profit and exapand
the other business through the mass media. The investment of kantipur
television is full investment of the Non Resdient Nepali and Nepali citizen.
Till today they are not seem particularly related with any specific political
party. I cannot found any hidden interest of investor. There was not clear data
available who owned how much share but i can assume that Non Resident Nepali
investing more.
The Interim Constitution 2007 has
a provision to prevent the scrapping of the registration of media all.
Earlier, such provision
applied only to the
print media. A high-level
media commission formed to
identify the problems
of media in
the new political
context and recommend policy
had made several recommendations for
media in Nepal,
some of which were followed up by
the government.
One achievement is the
amendment of the Working Journalists Act (WJA) and the enactment of the Right
To Information (RTI)
Act. Efforts for
policy reforms for
the development of media in the new context are still
underway. One is a policy on
Proportional Advertisement Policy, which
has recommended forming
some bodies like
Advertisement Authority,
Monitoring Committee on
Code of Advertising Ethics
(as a quasi-judicial body)
and Advertisement Council. Another is a report prepared by the
government on cable television.
that recommended
some ideas to be
achieved through two
ways: (1) existing laws,
(2) amending the National Broadcasting Act and Regulation. The draft of
the amendment is also prescribed in the report. There is also a draft of an
information policy (2011).
The larger
number of media
houses that have been
established in recent times
show that media has
become an attractive
business in the
new environment. According
to data of the
Ministry of Information and
Communications (2069-06-01) 394 radios and 39
televisions were registered. While focusing the on the ownership and
management of Television media in Nepal, it seems poor while comparing to the
developed country. We can take a look on running television stations and their
ownership on the following chart.
Chart 1.1
List of Television Stations Operating in Nepal
S.N.
|
Name
|
Est Date
|
Ownership
|
Region
|
|
1
|
1985
|
Government
|
Nationwide
|
||
2
|
2003
|
Government
|
Nationwide
|
||
3
|
2003
|
Private
|
Nationwide
|
||
4
|
2003
|
Private
|
Nationwide
|
||
5
|
2007
|
Private
|
Nationwide
|
||
6
|
2007
|
Private
|
Nationwide
|
||
7
|
2008
|
Private
|
Nationwide
|
||
8
|
Private
|
Nationwide
|
|||
9
|
2009
|
Private
|
Nationwide
|
||
10
|
2010
|
Private
|
Nationwide
|
||
11
|
2010
|
Private
|
Nationwide
|
||
12
|
Private
|
Nationwide
|
|||
13
|
2010
|
Private
|
Nationwide
|
||
14
|
2010
|
Private
|
Biratnagar
|
||
15
|
Gandaki TV
|
?
|
Private
|
Pokhara
|
|
16
|
GoldenEye Television
|
?
|
Private
|
Pokhara
|
|
17
|
Lumbini Television
|
?
|
Private
|
Butwal
|
|
18
|
Himshikhar Television
|
2010
|
Private
|
Nationwide
|
|
19
|
Araniko Television (previously
known as Mission Star)
|
2012
|
Private
|
Nationwide
|
|
20
|
Arena TV
|
?
|
Private
|
Itahari
|
|
21
|
E-24 Television
|
2012
|
Private
|
Nationwide
|
|
22
|
Btv
Entertainment Network (Nepal's 1st 30 channels under 1 Roof)
|
?
|
Private
|
||
23
|
Vision Television
|
?
|
Private
|
||
24
|
Private
|
(Source: Wikipedia)
Among these television channels, Nepal television was the only one and the first
Nepali television for about a decade. But after the reestablishment of
democracy Nepal became the country with freedom of communication
nd all of the doors of obstacles for the communication development was open.
Brief Overview on Ownership and Management of some major TV Channel
Nepal Television
Nepal Television (NTV) started as
a project in January 1985, under the sixth development plan 1980-1985. NTV was
established with the Slogan “Communication for Development” with a broad
mission statement “Produce and telecast programs on educational, religious and
cultural conservation to promote national unity, conserve heritage and promote
national interest. Provision was made "to undertake feasibility study of
the establishment of television in the country, to begin TV transmission
service at selected places if found feasible from economic and technical
standpoint". It began its experimental transmission when it launches its
first programmed on Late King Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev's visit to Australia
in 1985. The cost of television was very expensive and the director neither
gets any help from the government sector. Also Television was expensive medium
and required costly technical equipments. And for the first time the wave was
sent the material through a satellite. NTV has operated its second channel
(NTV Plus), under Chinese grant. Now NTV is a full member of the Asia Pacific
Broadcasting Union whose headquarter is located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It
obtained this membership in 1987. It is also an associate member of the Geneva
based European Broadcasting Union. At last on 22 Jestha 2064 Minister of
Communication and Information, Krishna Bahadur Mahara has done political
appointments: Corporation and Rishi Raj Baral as chairman of the Nepal
Television Corporation.
This shows that although the
government does not provide any help to the media for its establishment
government always tries to use the media for their ease and on their favor.
Kantipur Television
KTV was launched in 13th July
2003. It was at first only transmitted in Kathmandu but now it broadcast all
over the nation. It transmit to the US, New Zealand and North Korea also. The
toughest part in this sector is translating the visions and ideas into pictures
according to the public's demand and desires. Each day is a struggle for it is
a challenge in order to determine to win. Kantipur Television is the latest
Corporate Diversification of Kantipur Media Group. It is planned as a largest
private sector station in terms of investment among all the new stations being
promoted in the country. Popularly known as KTV it is licensed to operate as a
national level TV broadcaster in the terrestrial format. KTV is a non-exclusive
channel with 40% news and current affairs and 60% general entertainment program
mix. It is also an affiliate channel of CNN in Nepal. Currently KTV employs
more than 300 TV professionals and is equipped with latest technology and
updated production gadgetries. Kantipur TV is a television network of
Kantipur Publication of Nepal. This Publication House has a number of other
notable publications such as The Katmandu Post, and City Post.
Image Television
Born in 1995, as a program
package on NTV, Image Metro grew to become the first private channel in Nepal.
Since it is a private channel, people expected something different, and that
was challenge. There was a lot of music, but it was restricted to news and
current affairs at first. Later on it starts as Image Channel also gave way to
Nepali music videos. It first started with its slogan Image informs, Image
entertains, Image gives you television the way you want it, Image brings you
the latest and the greatest - a comprehensive line-up of programs guaranteed to
keep you watching and watching. RK Manandhar, the president and MD of Image
Channel (P) Ltd. which owns the Image Television.
Channel Nepal
Channel Nepal is the first Nepali
Satellite TV channel broadcasting from the Bangkok, which caters for viewers
across Asia and the Pacific from 3rd July, 2001. Widely viewed all over Nepal,
Channel Nepal is the most popular TV Channel in Nepali Diasporas across Asia,
the Middle-East and Gulf countries, and the pacific region. Channel Nepal goes
an air 18 hours a day with variety of programs. Channel Nepal is a Window on
Nepal and Nepali Diasporas. In-depth reporting, incisive views, situational
depiction and hard hitting analysis based on accuracy and fairness are the
district features of news and current affairs on Channel Nepal, With 14 news
bulletins (9 in Nepali and 5 in English).
It is the latest offer of Space
Time Network, which is committed to provide entertainment, information and
knowledge programming (including current affairs and views from Nepal and the
rest of the world) to the Nepalese living abroad. But now the Space Time
Network has been closed.
Avenues Television
ATV is a satellite television
channel which has introduced itself as the first news channel of Nepal. It is
an upcoming 24 hour Nepali news channel. It produces news program and current
affairs programs. The Ad Avenues Nepal, a Nepali advertising agency holds the
rights of this channel. It started test transmissions beginning the 3rd week of
Ashad 2064 although it has been to satellite on 2060. Moreover, its
state-of-the-art audio-visual production facilities combined with competent
professionals help in delivering cutting edge television advertisements for the
clients.
Sagarmatha Television
Sagarmatha Television, the first
'news channel' of the country was formally launched by 30th July 2007.
Initially, Sagarmatha TV will run programmes for 18 hours a day and can be
viewed from over 40 countries across the world. Sagarmatha television started
its transmission with the slogan as "Sagarmatha television a television of
the Nepalese in the true sense."
ABC Television
ABC News is one of the reputed
satellite television was launched 8th Sep 2008. It also covers entertainment
and musical programs as well. ABC Television is also known as "Janatako Television".
Ownership Status
In law, broadcast (radio and TV) media companies are required to publicly
disclose their ownership. Only one government owned television media
Nepal Television is running two channels at different frequency (Nepal
Television and NTV Plus). The chief manager (GM) of corporation also comes from
government appointment. Ownership of
Nepal Television Corporation goes to government. But all other private
Television institutions have private management and ownership, single and
multiple. Most of the private television carries multiple ownership and same
kind of management. The function of management is hold by different people as
different section or department.
Finance of TV Media
There should be a clear legal provisions and policy on issues like
foreign investment in media, transparency in investment and monopoly.
National media should be promoted by recognizing them as industry and by
providing
them facilities enjoyed by other
industries. Clean feed of ads of foreign broadcasters in Nepal could be an
example in this regard.
A clear and stable national advertisement policy should be developed
with a provision
of proportional
distribution of government
ads on the basis
of fixed standard
and
access of audiences.
The provision of
double and triple taxes should be
ended. The dispute between the government and the broadcasters on
royalty is a result of such tax system. Tax should
be exempted and facilities should
be provided for Internet, power and telephone bills
of media and media workers, and
on the purchase of the vehicles and equipment.
Management
The management of Nepal
Professional development
Broadcasters should be made
pluralistic, transparent and inclusive
to the possible
extent not only in appointing the
human resources but also in the materials and issues
that they produce.
Code of conduct
for broadcasters should
be prepared in
the participation of the
organizations and be implemented
effectively.
Focus should be given for the development of skilled and trained human
resources for
quality content.
Ownership of radio and
television receivers
Number of households owning radio
and TV sets in accordance with the Census of 2001 is given in the following
Figure. About 51% of rural households owned radio and 16% TV receivers. Radio
and TV ownership in mountain area is 53.91 and 4.52 whereas in Tarai the
figures are 42.65 and 25.14 percent of households respectively. This shows that even radio
ownership is low.
Policy and regulatory framework
Media is seen as the most
powerful organ of the government. It is thousand times powerful than the
bullets. Information is the bullet that media carry out. To control the media
and to complete its duties and responsibilities in way under the national
interest media are guided by culture, religion, and ethics or also by the state
policies. To control or regulate the media the government and the authority have
to formulate some code of conduct, act, policies and law in different forms.
These code of conduct, acts, policies and laws are regulatory policies for
media. These policies are to guide and to regulate the media and make them more
responsible and accountable.
Regulatory policies
and mechanism of broadcast media in Nepal
Broadcasting means to tell many
people or transmit through television and radio and written form in newspaper,
books, magazines, journals etc to inform the public. Regulation is rule made by
the authority to control or manage the group. It is like law guided by the
religion, culture, moral instinct or by the state policy. It is an order ,
ordinance requirement or a rule by authority that should be obeyed . The term
broadcast means transmit or spread the information and the term regulation
means an administrative notion by law or order or by nation.
Broadcasting policy
The Communication Policy of 1992
was the first policy document of the kind covering all the components of
communications. It paved the way for introducing laws and regulations for private
sector participation in broadcasting in
democratic environment. With the objective of providing information and
expanding broadcasting services through out the country, the long- term broadcasting
policy as enunciated in the Long-term Communication Policy 2000 includes
basically the following:
•
to maintain a competitive environment for broadcasting,
•
to establish a national broadcasting authority in order to regulate
broadcasters,
•
to enhance rural access to broadcasting through satellite,
• to
promote distance education through government owned broadcasting institutions
as well as that of private sector,
•
to establish some public service obligation to private sector broadcasters,
•
to provide integrated information service through radio, television,
internet and
telephone in districts,
•
to provide an autonomous broadcasting academy to build human resources
for
broadcasting and programmed
development,
•
to encourage development of programs to enhance cultural heritage.
However, apart from issuing some
licenses to new broadcasters as provided by the existing regulations no
significant strides have been observed to implement this policy.
Broadcasting Act
Broadcasting Act (1993), which
followed the 1992 Communications Policy, had set the stage for breaking the
hold of state owned monopoly of Radio Nepal and Nepal Television in
broadcasting:
•
It provides for licensing private sector in broadcasting television programs
by satellite, cable and by any other means and programs by establishing FM
broadcasting system (i.e. Radio or Television system).
•
It also provides for establishing Earth Station for the purpose of
broadcasting programs through means of satellite or cable to reach consumers.
•
The Act authorizes the government to frame necessary Rules in order to
implement the objectives of this Act and to delegate any or all the powers
conferred on it.
• The Act describes duties and
functions of the broadcasters, in
particular their responsibility in maintaining political neutrality and
verifiability of news. It forbids advertisement pertaining to health (smoking
and drinking) and pornography and also
detrimental to political parties,
country’s security and sovereignty.
•
It also disallows advertisements with intent to overthrow elected
government, detract from the non-aligned foreign policy of Nepal, or that in
any way create division, hatred, insult and degradation of any community,
language, religion or culture. Act to
any authority or body.
•
It also stipulates the extent of penalty for broadcasting or causing to
broadcast without license or any programs in contravention of this Act.
•
It also guides that programs should be directed to development of the
country,
preservation of culture and
folklore, and maintenance of good relation with neighbours.
National Broadcasting Regulation
The regulation came two years
after the Act. The regulation includes licensing procedures, annual licensing
and royalty charges. The rules stipulate that the period of the license will be
specified in the permission letter. A number of points seems to arise while
going through the licensing Rules of the Regulation.
•
The regulation seeks information from the applicant in the prescribed
format but reserves the right to issue license or not to without specifying any
criteria as to how an
applicant is qualified or
otherwise to obtain license.
•
Rules do not provide for any limits to number of licenses to be issued and
applicants
are able to apply any time but
Rules are not specific in terms of any period within which a license will be
issued or application will be rejected showing reasons of rejection.
•
Rules further specify that license period will be as mentioned in the
license and the
permission letter indicating that
the period is subject to discretion of licensing authority.
Problems and Issues
Policy: In context of
radio and television, there are problems with licensing, taxes, renewal, crisis
of recognition (for example, radio journalists do not receive Press
Accreditation Card or only a
few of them
get it), discrimination in
information collection, difficulty
in implementing the WJA,
mission-oriented approaches as
against professional and
non-transparent investment. Foreign investment, monopoly in investment
and distribution of all-time licenses are also the policy wise problems. The
issue of foreign investment is not clearly address by
the law. Growing media
monopolies and cross-ownership of
media are other issues. Another issue is the issuance
of licenses for perpetuity – unlike term licenses in many other countries.
There is a line of thinking that frequency being a public resource should not
be given
forever for the
particular
company/institution. Though we
have a renewal system the
government cannot revoke licenses according to the constitutional
provision.
Professional development:
Although there has
been a quantitative
growth in broadcasting, qualitative, professional
and institutional development
has not been
satisfactory. Broadcasters have
become the victim
of limited market
and their maximum
growth in numbers. The frequency
spectrum in Kathmandu
is almost used
up and cities
like Pokhara, and Janakpur
have as many
as 18 and 9 radios,
respectively. Biratnagar/Itahari,
Butawal/Bhairahawa, Nepalgunj, Dang
are some other
examples of maximum
radio presence. In general, district headquarters and small market
places are also tuning their local FMs. The
operational costs are high
while the revenue generation has fallen,
particularly
after the power cuts of up to 14
hours in the winter months. The
broadcasters do not
have adequate trained human
resources, also in management and financial resources
are difficult for
some to meet
basic operational costs,
including that for infrastructures, and for essential equipment
and repair and maintenance.
Identity and
standards: The government treats the
press and broadcast
media in a discriminatory manner. Issues of differentiating radios as commercial, non-governmental organizations, cooperatives,
educational institutions, local
government etc. remains unresolved. Representative organizations
of radio have
held discussions to
this effect with the
government. The ministry
has agreed on
the proposal of
the BAN and ACORAB to recognize
them as they want to through policy and regulations differentiating public
service broadcasting, community broadcasting
and commercial broadcasting on
the basis of
their content and scope – national, federal and local. This remains to
be done.
There is
a feeling of discrimination between
the media in the capital
and those outside especially in
terms of access
to resources; there is
also a similar
feeling among the organizations with 'big budget' and
'small budgets'. Effective monitoring and regulation: Implementation of
journalists' code of
conduct and
media laws has been weak in the
absence of effective media monitoring and regulation. The MoIC has been
monitoring the radios and TVs whereas Press Council of Nepal monitors the print
media and the code of conduct. Likewise,
the Audit Committee of Circulation monitors and
evaluates the printed
materials and circulation
of the print
media and there
is the Minimum Remuneration
Fixation Committee to monitor the implementation of the minimum
remuneration of the
working journalists and
media workers. Besides,
the Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ) has been
monitoring the issues relating to press freedom and rights of the journalists.
However, no work has been done to integrate and coordinate monitoring to make
it effective.
There is concern that the
government has ignored the initiatives taken by the stakeholders for drafting
policies since 2007. Instead, the MoIC has initiated a draft that stakeholders
oppose saying that they
were not consulted. Further, like
the print media many
broadcasters also have links
with political parties, and are
often less concerned about the
people's issues and serve the interests of the powerful.
Writer was sub-editor at News 24 Television Nepal.
Writer was sub-editor at News 24 Television Nepal.
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