With the new Union Cabinet announced yesterday, I sincerely hope that Andimuthu Raja, the returning Minister for Communications & IT, and Ambika Soni, the newly appointed Minister of Information and Broadcasting learn to work together. Over the next five years, there will be several areas of overlap and conflict between the two ministries, but more importantly, there will be areas of collaboration as policies will need to be defined for new services. The conflict and collaboration between content and carriage will only increase with convergence. The Biggest Battle Yet Nowhere is this going to be as evident as in the case of Mobile TV (rather, Wireless TV). This will be the biggest battleground between broadcasters and telecom operators, and the ministers must together ensure that the final policy remains neutral to both sides, allowing the free market to prevail over lobbying and protectionist considerations. To that end, it is vital that India's Mobile TV policy should not be preceded by the auction of 3G spectrum. Doing so will give telecom operators an undue advantage in rolling out a competing service, albeit using a different techonology. This is what afflicted IPTV as well: a delay in launch due to the lack of a finalized policy, allowed a competing service (DTH) to gain significant ground. The policy must be neutral, but the timing should also not offer undue advantage to any stakeholder. (Read about Doordarshan's Mobile TV Plans here and here) Content Code, Copyright & An Media Agnostic Approach A Content Code may…
