The Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) on Thursday appealed to the Government to allow news and current affairs programming on private FM radio stations, saying that this “medium of the under privileged” was the only mass media not allowed to broadcast news.
FICCI, in a memorandum to the Information & Broadcasting Ministry, said private FM radio  was the best medium to broadcast local news that could be accessed by people while on the move.
“Private radio is the only mass medium not offering news and current affairs as part of their programming/ content. TV, newspapers and Internet are all allowed to broadcast news,” the memorandum, prepared immediately after FICCI constituted a Radio Forum, said.
FICCI said that a large percentage of the rural and urban population, who are unable to read and write, could not read newspapers and were unable to buy TV sets, apart from having lesser access to electricity required to watch TV.
“For the poor the only available medium of news and entertainment is radio,” it said, adding that news and current affairs programmes across the world were classified as part of general entertainment. “Allow six to eight minute of news and current affairs to be broadcast on FM radio under ‘general entertainment’ license, since news and current affairs help to fulfil all the three objectives of the government — entertainment, education and information — to make available quality programmes with a localised flavour, and to supplement the services of All India Radio (AIR),” it said.
It added that satellite radio is allowed to broadcast news content.
The Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry also appealed for a “level-playing field” for FM radio with satellite radio in FDI limits. It also pointed out that while the FDI limit for terrestrial radio was 20 per cent, there was no limit set for the latter.
It further pointed out that the FDI limit for FM radio was the lowest among all other media like news channels, newspapers (both 26 per cent), cable TV and DTH (both 49 per cent of FDI and FII combined).
The memorandum said that due to an industry-friendly policy of the government since 2005, radio had witnessed an unprecedented growth, and said it should resolve all the outstanding issues of the industry, including those related to payment of music royalties and release of more frequencies.