MUMBAI: The Finance Ministry is giving final touches to a package for helping the media sector tide over the current global recession which has also affected foreign investment in media.
A Finance Ministry official told indiantelevision.com that the package, which had been submitted by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, would generally be for the print media though some aspects may cover the electronic media as well.
Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Anand Sharma said he had decided on a stimulus package after "representatives of the media industry had written to the government about the adverse impact of the financial crisis on the media industry. We are going to give some stimulus package to the media industry and we do hope to mitigate the situation."
He was speaking after a meeting with senior media leaders including Hindustan Times group chairperson and editorial director Shobhna Bhartia, Indian Express editor-in-chief Shekhar Gupta, and Publisher and Business Standard editor TN Ninan.
The Minister refused to give more details but said it would greatly benefit the media sector as the government was very sensitive to difficulties being faced by them.
Though the suggestions had originally come in the form of recommendations traditionally made by every Ministry for the forthcoming Union Budget, it was decided to release this before the budget in view of the recession that has hit the industry.
The media industry, particularly the print sector, has been hit sharply by the fall in advertisement revenue and rising cost of newsprint because of the global financial crisis.
The Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP) under the I&B ministry is responsible for releasing government advertisements in newspapers and figures as one of the most important advertisement clients for newspapers.
Late last year, the Ministry had announced enhancement of the existing rates for the DAVP advertisements by 24 per cent, applicable for the advertisements released on or after 1 September, 2008. All categories of newspapers and periodicals empanelled with DAVP were to be covered under the revised rates. The decision was expected to benefit more than 4000 newspapers and periodicals. The small and medium newspapers, among others, would however be benefiting most as the percentage of advertisements to be released to these categories of newspapers was increased earlier.
The government had earlier brought in changes in the press advertisement policy to help the small and regional newspaper industry. The quantum of advertisements was increased from 10-15 per cent in case of small newspapers and from 30-35 per cent in case of Medium newspapers, in money terms.
Minimum publication period requirement was drastically reduced from 36 months to 6 months for regional languages newspapers in Bodo, Dogri, Garhwali, Khasi, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Manipuri, Mizo, Nepali, Rajasthani, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Urdu and tribal languages. Similar concession was extended to all newspapers in all languages published from backward, remote hilly and border areas and in Jammu and Kashmir, Andaman Nicobar and the eight North Eastern states.
Newspapers which achieve a 100,000 circulation within one year of its publication are now be considered for empanelment after one year of publication so that government does not lose this huge readership for its messages.
Increased support to Urdu newspapers has been ensured by earmarking 3.54 per cent of total allocation for print advertisement.
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