DTH operators can now hope to breathe easy.

The Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry has indicated that it would cut the annual license fee for direct-to-home (DTH) operators from the existing 10% to 6% of their revenues.

While giving this information at the sidelines of the annual FICCI Frames conference in Mumbai, Sushma Singh, secretary, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting said, “We will deliberate on the matter. This amendment to the existing licence condition could lead to healthy competition among the DTH operators. Other delivery platforms will also be forced to innovate, bringing considerable benefit to the consumers.”

This move is seen to bring some ease in the pain of all the major DTH operators including Dish TV, Tata Sky, Big TV, Sun TV and Airtel Digital TV. All these DTH operators urged the government earlier to reduce the licence fee.

Apart from this, the government has decided to increase the rate for DAVP to 10 per cent across the board.

Speaking on this at the same venue, minister of state for I&B Anand Sharma said, “The mandatory discount of 15% in DAVP ads has been done away with as the rate itself has been raised by 10% across the board.”

In order to give a big boost to digitalization of cable TV across the country, the government has also decided to come up with a policy framework for Headend-In-The-Sky (HITS) soon

The ministry is also initiating further steps to develop the Film and Television Institute in Pune as a universal foundation.

The government has also taken steps to ensure that films are scientifically archived with a facility in Pune. Over 100,000 films can be archived there.

Currently, the country has co-production agreements with Germany, Italy, UK and Brazil. Sharma said that the government would soon come up with such similar co-production agreements with other countries like France and China.