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New Delhi: Monday, May 13, 2019.
NaMo
TV is an “advertisement based platform” distributed by several Direct to Home
operators and availed of by the Bharatiya Janata Party, India’s Information and
Broadcasting Ministry told Boom in an exclusive Right To Information reply.
It
is not a registered channel that needs permission to air, the ministry added.
The
reply comes more than a month after NaMo TV quietly started playing on
television sets across India.
The
ambiguous nature of the channel, which has aired content ranging from
advertisements for government schemes, the prime minister’s speeches,
interviews of the finance minister to nationalistic Bollywood movies, sparked a
debate on social media over the timing of its launch, its ownership and
legality just ahead of the general elections.
In
the same RTI reply, the ministry also said, “The DTH [Direct to Home] operators
do not require to take any permission from an authority/Ministry of I&B for
showing content on the Platform Services.”
The
channel’s name NaMo is a portmanteau of Narendra Modi, and it has the prime
minister’s face as its logo. It started airing on March 26, just ahead of the
Lok Sabha elections.
DTH
operators such as Tata Sky, Videocon and Dish TV all aired NaMo TV as a
free-to-air service, meaning subscribers do not have to pay to view the
channel. Viewers were also not given an option to unsubscribe from the channel.
Boom
had filed the RTI query at the ministry on April 8, asking eight questions
about the channel’s ownership, nature and permissions sought by the channel to
operate.
The
RTI reply dated May 6, is signed by P Nagarajan, under secretary to the
Government of India and the Chief Public Information Officer.
The
Information and Broadcasting Ministry, in response to questions one to seven,
said: “The NaMo TV is not a registered channel. It is an advertisement platform
service which is being distributed by various DTH operators exclusively to its
own subscribers” and the “BJP has availed the said Platform Services of DTH
operators on commercial basis.”
Referring
to question on permissions needed to operate such a channel, the ministry said,
“The DTH operators do not require to take any permission from an
authority/Ministry of I&B for showing content on the Platform Services or
offering such services to its subscribers.”
The
ministry also said that the Election Commission of India was better placed to
respond to question number eight, and that the RTI query had been forwarded to
the poll body for that purpose. Question eight asked: “Please state if the
Ministry aware of instances where political parties have rented/owned TV
channels to broadcast content curated by them. If yes, details thereof.”
Boom
had on April 4 reported that the Information and Broadcasting Ministry’s
website had no details about NaMo TV such as who owned it and whether any
permissions were sought before airing it. The ministry had earlier not
responded to repeated calls and emails sent by BOOM asking about details of
NaMo TV.
When
Boom had earlier contacted spokespersons of two DTH operators, their replies
were contradictory.
The
DishTV spokesperson had said, “The channel is as ad sales service which means
that they are not registered as entertainment or news on our service.”
A
Tata Sky spokesperson, however, responded by saying, “Tata Sky has its own
channel for ad sales. We cannot have any ad sales channel apart from this
according to our company policies and guidelines.”
On
April 4, Harit Nagpal, Chief Executive Officer, Tata Sky, told NDTV, “NaMo TV
is not a Hindi news service. If someone in the frontline at Tata Sky has
tweeted or said that it is a news service, it is a mistake. “NaMo TV does not
fall into any genre” and the feed is “coming from the BJP via Internet. Special
services do not need a licence.”
Nagpal’s
reply was in response to a tweet by Tata Sky’s official handle that called NaMo
TV a Hindi news service.
BJP
had also announced the launch of NaMo TV from its official handle
On
May 2, the BJP said that it had written to the Election Commission seeking
permission to air two movies starring Akshay Kumar Padman and Toilet Ek
Prem Katha on NaMo TV.
Meanwhile,
NaMo TV continues to air the prime minister’s speeches, interviews and
advertisements about the various schemes launched by his party.
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