India says 15% of programmes should be of Indian origin

Ok! Before you guys curse me about what this has to do with Sri Lankan Broadcasting Industry please wait.

All channels broadcast from India should make sure that 15% of the programmes broadcast should be of Indian origin, this will directly affect all cable tv channels in sri lanka.

The English Movie channels such as HBO, Star World are exempt from this rule since India does not produce any English movies. However channels such as Cartoon Network, Pogo, Discovery, etc have to show 15% percent Indian programmes for a week. This means that since Sri Lanka receives mainly channels broadcast from India as cable tv channels so we will also have to view these programmes only.

This is a big opportunity for the Sri Lankan Government to relax rules and lure the satellite broadcast channels into Sri Lanka so that they will start broadcasting from here into countries like India to avoid this rule.

When the major satellite channels moved away from Hong Kong (due to the Hong Kong handover to China) they were lured into India and we missed a major opportunity to lure them into Sri Lanka but lets not miss this opportunity.

Please refer B'cast Bill likely to skip domestic content clause for English movie channels

CBNSat Subscribers On Line Petition

Please sign the CBNSat Subscriber On Line Petition and make your voice heard. CBNSat Customers are now joining to fight for their rights. Please email cbnsat@gmail.com with your account number and contact details for further information.

CBNSat On Line Petition

Refer CBNSat Forum : CBNSat Subscribers Unite - On Line Petition

What are the Maharaja's upto?

Yesterday while flicking through the channels on TV we happened to come across Channel One MTV and happened to see the crawler running across the screen saying "We have paid Rs 10,000 to bring this programme to you" or something to that effect but it was about the tax imposed on local tv.

We thought that this issue was sorted out and none of the other stations are now making a big deal about this except for the Maharaja's. We saw it only on MTV but would someone please confirm whether they have the crawler on Sirasa TV too. Are any of the other channels running it too?

This is nonsense since when all the other TV Stations (namely ETV and Art TV) stopped broadcasting their regular programming due to the tax, the Maharaja's continued with regular programming. It was a moment where they used the weakness of ETV and Art TV to gain dirt cheap publicity.

It was a well known fact that ETV and Art TV would have been more deeply affected that MTV and we hope all the other local channels have learnt the true nature of the Maharaja's. The so called Action TV people never hightlighted the fiasco in the cable tv industry. because it is very advantageous for them if these cable tv companies are kept shut.

Small Cable TV Operators : Operational ??

We are getting mixed reports on the status of the small cable tv operators in the island. Some information says that they have been shutdown whereas others say that they are still operational. We would like the people who have purchased cable tv connections from the smaller operators to confirm whether they are operational or not. Please indicate who your operator is and the area they serve.

Government reduces tax on foreign content

At a meeting held between H.E President Mahinda Rajapakse and the Heads of Private TV Stations, Actors, Producers, etc on Saturday it was decided to reduce the tax on imported English language content. We would like to thank our President for making this move considering the plight of the viewers of English Language programmes.

Sir, we would also like to request you to consider the plight of over 30,000 customers of cable tv and allow those cable tv companies to restart transmissions.

Accordingly all regular programming should commence on the tv stations from today.

Extension of Deadline for Cable TV Licenses

Today is the scheduled closing date for the applications for issuing license to cable tv companies and now we are getting reports that it has been extended please refer link. Coincidentally the applications will close on August 15th, the date of the next Magistrates Court hearing for CBNSat - The Supreme Court hearing is on August 1st.

Extension of deadline

The reason for the extension according to the TRC is that it is following requests from interested parties. Can anyone confirm whether CBNSat, LBN, Comet Cable, Satnet and Multivison Sub Agents have applied for these licenses?

Since this was made a requirement we feel that the above companies would have applied for the license.

So when they say that interested parties have requested for an extension it must mean that new players are also planning to enter the cable tv market, this is obviously good for the industry. Please do not wait until licenses are issued to allow the shutdown operators to restart since the Multivision Subagents, Satnet and Comet Cable are also presently functioning without this license. Therefore do not go ahead and shutdown the above mentioned operators rather allow ALL SHUTDOWN OPERATORS TO RESTART OPERATIONS.

Customers of all shutdown Cable TV operators it is time to come up with an action plan.

Refer Link CBNSat Customers it is time to take Action

More Cable TV operations shutdown?

We are receiving information that small cable tv operations in area's such as Colombo 11, 13, 14, 15 were sealed last night. Would someone confirm this?

Are these independant operators or are they the multivision sub agents who are carrying out business in limited areas?

Please keep us posted on the latest developments in this area.

4A wants a dialogue

The Accredited Advertising Agencies Association held a press confernece yesterday and there were some pretty interesting revelations that have come out during the press conference. They claim that the new tax will not increase the tax revenue of the government but will rather reduce it due to the reason that advertisers will no longer use the local media for their campaigns. Here are some of the points that were highlighted

• For an imported advertisement a channel will have to pay Rs 1 Million for broadcasting it, even if the campaign is to last for only 3 months.
• They say all advertisements cannot be produced locally since, for example Singapore Airlines cannot produce their ad's locally because it has to represent the taste of Singapore.
• If an advertisement brand ambassador is an International Star, then you cannot expect them to fly the star to colombo to films some ad's for sri lanka alone.
• Niche Channels which cater to only a certain segment of the public and available in only certain areas and do not pose any threat to the local industry will not have any commercials because of the present ruling, forcing them to close down.

Above were statements made by learned members of the advertising community. We therefore feel that the President should take into consideration the position of this industry before implementing this law. If the actors who know nothing about finance, economy and advertising (we doubt they know to act) form regulations, then all of us will end up acting that sri lanka is improving and in reality we will be like an North Korea or an under developed African Nation.

Anyway we would like to urge the authorities concerned to discuss with the private media, advertising community and all the stake holders and come up with a workable solution. We do not need to destroy one industry for the improvement of another. There is a detailed account of yesterdays press conference in todays newspapers.

When Sri Lankans did not work together it resulted in the ethnic conflict, so lets work together because one conflict is enough.

New Tax : Utter Confusion

As most of the television viewing public in Sri Lanka knows the new taxation system for the TV stations has given rise to a lot of confusions.

There are some who insist that there is no effect from this tax and some say the tax will kill off the private tv stations. It is true that certain tv stations will only experience a minimum affect due to this tax and will only result in reduced income whereas some may be adversely affected.

But the question is whether this tax is ethical. Is this not a form of discrimination? Should steps not be taken to improve the local television production companies and urge them to produce quality content? Will this not effect the outlook that foreigners have on Sri Lanka? Will taxing foreign content automatically improve locally produced content?

Some leading actors, actresses and producers are also behind the idea to implement this new tax. Do they know anything about finance and being ethical? There is no doubt that it is the serials that they act or produce that are not doing well, shouldn't they not be more concerned and evaluate themselves on why their stuff is not even being viewed by the people who watch only Sinhala drama's. They should realise that the fault is with them and correct themselves without poking around with other people.

With all these issues people who watch specially english programmes are being deprived of entertainment since the Cable TV shutdown is also still in effect. Today's newspapers report that the advertising industry is also not happy about this scenario, it also reports that the exporters are very happy. But may we ask where do the exporters export sri lankan content to, is there a huge market for local content abroad that is not even watched by sri lankans.

Certain political parties are also getting involved in this tax issue now since the people whom they have a stake in will also be affected. But not even one politician in sri lanka is even bothered about the people suffering from the sudden closure of cable tv companies. Not even one politicial is saying a word about the Cable TV fiasco.

Too bad, politicians shout only if they are hurt and not bothered when the people they are to serve are being hurt.

First Cable TV shutdown, now taxing foreign television content, what's next......

Mr. President remove the unethical tax imposed on TV

It is rough times specially for the people who like to watch English programmes on TV since we saw that many English programmes on Art Tv and ETV were curtailed and only news was shown.

The TV stations in Sri Lanka should have seen this coming after the stoppage of certain Cable TV channels by vested interests, now the local channels are also being targeted. These are the people who did nothing when CBNSat & LBN was fighting it's case and now they are also being affected. They were happy when the Cable TV Channels shutdown.

Anyway looks like H.E Mahinda Rajapakse has not come out with a statement regarding this issue and we hope he sees the injustice and comes out with a solution. Only if local programmes compete with international programmes will we have good quality local entertainment. Do not force people to watch what they do not want to. Give us the freedom to choose it is our Human Right.

Please urge the local actors and producers to produce good quality entertainment instead of getting good quality entertainment restricted and them not improving their acting skills and production skills.

We the citizens of Sri Lanka demand the Government of Sri Lanka not to resort to unethical practices by restricting freedom of choice. First Cable TV and now local TV, what is next.....

Please remove all tax on imported tv programmes.

There is an article regarding this new tax on a leading Indian Website
Import duty on foreign content in effect in Sri Lanka; local broadcasters hit

New levy: TV channels to wait and see - Daily Mirror 18th July 2006

The Television Joint Industry Committee (TJIC) comprising several private TV channels adopted a wait and see policy as President Rajapaksa failed to respond to their plea to reconsider the decision on the imposing of a levy on foreign programmes.

ETV head Laksman Bandaranayake told the Daily Mirror that they did not receive any response from the President yesterday as expected. However, he said that they had decided to watch the situation today.

He said ETV had decided to suspend all programmes that come under the new levy.We are only telecasting news at the moment, he said.

Meanwhile, Swarnavahini had decided to suspend all Hindi and English movies and replace them with local programmes. Swarnavahini Programmes Director Hema Nalin Karunaratne said they had made this decision as the levy imposed was high.

Responding to the TJIC statement which stated that other channels too were backing them, Mr. Karunaratne said he couldn't comment as he was not aware of what transpired at Sunday's media conference.

Earlier on Monday several TV channels warned that the country's tele-industry would crumble as a result of this levy. They said it would deprive the village youth of the opportunity to learn English through their subtitled programmes.

A letter to the Media Minister, signed by all channel heads also urged the government to reconsider its decision.

According to the Finance Act No. 11 of 2006, Rs. 75,000 would be charged for every half-hour, while Rs. 90,000 would be levied for each dubbed programme. In addition, Rs. one million would be charged for foreign advertisements.

Tv Stations protest new tax on programmes

There was a report in the Sunday Observer yesterday regarding a black out of tv programmes from 7:30PM after the press conference. Was this a mistake or an attempt to discredit the stations?

There is information that certain tv stations may close down because of this move to impose a tax. Talk about the improvement of the economy. The Sunday Times reported that The Indian High Commission has expressed concerned over the new tax imposement. Maybe because of the Free Trade Agreement between India and Sri Lanka. Even the US High Commission is supposed to have said something.

Let's hope that the someone realises the mistake and corrects it before it becomes dangerous and hurts Sri Lanka's economy beyond repair.

Srilakvahini : Launched

Looks like Sri Lanka has got another satellite tv channel. During controversial times anyway. They are supposed to a fully digital satellite channel. This channel is going to pose TV Lanka some competition since this is at the moment a satellite only channel and is not available as a regular tv channel. May be the management can inform us whether they are planning to have a local broadcast too.

At the moment the channel is available from 4 AM to 10 PM on a daily basis. The website is as follows http://www.srilakvahini.com/.

This is a channel that is planning to carry out English and Tamil programmes as well as times passes by and at the moment is concentrating on Sinhala language content.

Just a word of caution to the management since they should be careful about the recent developments in the industry and should have themselves adequately protected. No one knows how they managed the license since the media ministry informed earlier that there was no license for satellite broadcasters. Also do not hope too much that the CBNSat customers will use their dish to watch Srilakvahini since your business models are different and the customers who use CBNSat and the customers who view Srilakvahini are having different tastes.

Anyway we at TV Radio Sri Lanka like to wish Future Satcom all the best as they hope to take Sri Lanka to the rest of the world.

New Sri Lankan satellite channel takes off, beaming to the region

July 13, 2006 (LBO) – A new Sri Lankan satellite channel took wing Thursday, with plans to tap into a captive market of customers who lost out to the recent shut down of local cable operators.

Called Srilakvahini, holding company Future Satcom hopes to beam Sri Lankan programs in Sinhala, Tamil and English as well as regional content around the island and to other countries. The new satellite television channel can broadcast its programs to Asia, Russia, the Middle East, Europe and African countries, targeting largely Sri Lankan expatriate communities abroad. The first three months will run on largely Sinhala content like news, dramas, musicals and sports programming, produced locally. Running on programming produced by its own production house, the company is also exploring tie ups with other content providers from Sri Lanka and the region. “The main feature about this channel is that it is ‘free-to-air’, and so will not require any monthly subscription, but a one time investment for the necessary equipment by the users,” Rohan Welivita, Chairman of Future Satcom, told journalists on Thursday. Future Satcom has tied up with Taiwan based tech company Data Video Corporation for equipment, costing between 10,000 to 20,000 rupees plus installation, for customers. “This will facilitate complete coverage of Sri Lanka through a down link system via a satellite receiver disk,” Nalin Attygalle, Director Operations and International Marketing, said. The company says it has all the necessary licence approvals from the Telecom Regulatory Commission, the Media Ministry and the Ministry of Defence. About 1000 people have signed up for the new service already, but a ready market of potential customers could come from elsewhere. “In the current context, there are a lot of people who have purchased equipment already and are now unable to use it. Market data shows that there are already about 25,000 customers who have this equipment, so there is a captive market already,” Attygalle said. Three cable operators were recently shut down by the government over allegations of improper licensing, with the battle going through courts.

The first test transmission is to take place before the end of July, after which it will be rolled out to users. Transmission is to be expanded in a second phase, about six months from now, to cover the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Future Satcom is the holding company for Srilakvahini as well as production house Fine Vision, SriLak Entertainment and trading and business arm Sattronic.

Private TV Operators Ridicule Finance Act - Daily Mirror 12th July 2006

Private Television Operators at a meeting yesterday called the Regulations Levy Act put on private television stations “ridiculous”, “without a proper basis” and not in keeping with the economy of the country.

The Operators are to meet Media Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa today regarding Act No. 11 of 2006 that taxes up to Rs 90,000/= for every 30 minutes of Teledrama or Film telecast on private stations.

“We as broadcasters are disturbed by the Act and are going to strongly emphasize to the Minister that there is only a short span of time given to implement it, there is no clarity whatsoever and the resource group which is supposed to monitor the content of the Act has not been formed as yet,” said Operators Facilitator and CEO of Derana Television Anup Chandrasekaran.

Saying that the broadcasters should have been consulted on the policy before it was executed, Mr. Chandrasekaran said that there was no formal orientation and the date of application was communicated orally to them on July 15.

The Act in itself is ambiguous and shows that the policy makers had no clue of what they were doing, he said. He added that if they were to pay money to the government the Act had to be viable.

He said operators were aware that they had to keep the sensitiveness of the community in mind and have nothing against that. If government was asking operators to give emphasis to local content it was feasible he said, but that the Act was not genuine in arbitrarily coming out with pricing,” he stressed.

Nowhere in the world have these regulations been applied and is a step backward for the industry” he said.

By Jeevani Pereira

Insat 4C Launch fails

Most of you may be wondering what effect the above satellite launch failure may have on Sri Lanka. Well Rupavahini the State TV channel had booked space aboard the Insat 4C Satellite.

Given Below is are excerpts taken off Sify Business under the heading "Sun, Lankan TV to ride on Insat 4C"

The Sri Lankan ride on Insat-4C gives Antrix a foothold in a highly-competitive, multi-billion international satellite market, the sources said. Rupavahini has already been accommodated on a working Insat while 4C gets ready for an indigenous launch.

Antrix bagged the Rupavahini order of an undisclosed value in a bid contested by established operators such as Panamsat, Thaicom and Singapore's ST1 a few months ago, the sources told Business Line.

Rupavahini's is said to be part of this capacity and is meant for broadcast links across Sri Lanka with Colombo through local earth stations.

Given below are excerpts taken off The Indian Express under the heading "INSAT-4C goes down in smoke in what ISRO calls ‘rare event’"

A day after the Agni-III ballistic missile failed to meet test expectations, India’s space programme took a knocking when the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV FO2), carrying the INSAT-4C communication satellite, veered off course and exploded 60 seconds after lift-off.

The three-stage rocket burst into flames during the first stage operation, a minute after lift-off at 5.38 pm from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, some 80 km from Chennai.

Direct-to-home (DTH) plans of Sun TV take a hit as it had booked 7 of 12 transponders on INSAT-4C

Lankan TV too had booked transponders in satellite

Even the soon to be launched DTH operations of Sun TV have been hit by this setback. Does this mean Rupavahini will have to come aboard CBNSat again?

LOST & The Apprentice on Art TV

The International hit television series LOST is now on Art TV commencing yesterday 10 July 2006 and a new season of Apprentice will be starting on Friday 14th July 2006. Given below are the scheduled broadcast times

LOST
First Airing Monday @ 9:30PM
First Repeat Wednesday @ 10:30PM
Second Repeat Monday @ 2:00PM

The Apprentice
First Airing Friday @ 9:30PM
The repeating times will be posted here once confirmation is received.

Govt finalises tax on imported movies, serials, commercials

The government has finalised tax rates for imported movies, dramas, sitcoms and commercials, with a formal announcement expected on Thursday.

Rates are likely to be 75, 000 rupees (750 dollars) for a 30 minute block that is not dubbed, going up to 90,000 rupees (900 dollars) for a dubbed half hour block.

The Teledrama, Film and Commercials levy will cover imports of all television stations as well as commercials made out of the country and imported for local telecast

All documentaries, educational dramas, movies and children's entertainment will be exempt from the tax

Exemptions or concessions are also expected for Tamil and some English language programming. Funds collected are to be routed to develop the Sinhala film and teledrama industry.

Sri Lanka imports largely English, Tamil and highly popular Hindi programs, with subtitles and dubbed programs common on local television stations.

Source -LBO Newsdesk-

Intelsat completes acquisition of PanAmSat

Leading satellite service provider Intelsat today announced the completion of its $ 6.4 billion acquisition of rival PanAmSat. The addition of PanAmSat's video market expertise, advanced satellite fleet and blue-chip media customer base makes the new Intelsat the largest provider of fixed satellite services (FSS) worldwide to each of the media, network services/telecom and government customer sectors.

Intelsat acquired all of the outstanding common shares of PanAmSat for approximately $3.2 billion. As a result of the merger, PanAmSat is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Intelsat, and the common stock of PanAmSat has been delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. The total value of the transaction, including PanAmSat debt that was refinanced or remained outstanding, is approximately $6.4 billion.

Using optimized capacity on a combined fleet of 51 satellites and a large, complementary terrestrial infrastructure including eight owned teleports, fiber connectivity and over 50 points of presence in almost 40 cities, the new Intelsat: -- Carries one out of every four television channels transmitted over fixed satellites; -- Supports 27 DTH platforms worldwide; -- Operates 16 satellites that are part of video neighborhoods around the world; -- Is the number one provider of transponders for video programming worldwide; -- Carries more high definition (HD) programming than any other FSS carrier; -- Is the largest provider of commercial satellite services to the government sector; -- Is the leading provider of services to enterprise, Internet and mobile network operators; and -- Provides communications services to 99 percent of the world's populated regions.

Courtesy Indian Television

Reality TV is now Zone Reality

One of the most popular channels which was available on the presently off air CBNSat satellite network called Reality TV has now obtained a new and relaunced itself with a new look calling itself Zone Reality.

The launch took place last week and Sri Lankan viewers got a sneak peak at the relaunched channel when CBNSat came on air for about an hour on friday night.

Reality TV is available exclusively on CBNSat.