Television takes Nepal to new heights
By Dhruba Adhikary
KATHMANDU
- Nepal's unimpressive literacy rate, of about 58
percent , does not depict this country of 23 million
inhabitants as a place where newspapers could become a
lucrative industry. Radio and television, therefore,
have a clear edge over the print medium.
Besides, Nepal's inaccessible mountain terrain
makes it a territory more suitable for electronic
mediums - radio in particular. And incredibly cheap,
pocket-size Chinese transistor sets, imported through
Tibetan markets, have visibly helped popularize radio
listening, even in the remotest parts of the kingdom.
Almost anyone can possess a radio set with multiple
bands which can catch even the audio parts of television
signals.
Concomitant developments of recent
years include an end of the monopoly since the mid-1990s
of state-owned Radio Nepal, which now has to compete
with over two dozen newly-launched Frequency Modulated
(FM) stations scattered in various parts of the country.
In addition, there are pirate radio centers run by
Maoist insurgents to spread revolutionary messages. Such
changes in the media have been possible because of the
democratic restoration of the early 1990s.
In
the bowl-shaped valley of Kathmandu, which houses the
capital and two other districts, it has lately become a
fashion among well-to-do residents to carry a radio set
while going out for an early morning stroll. The latest
news updates, extracts from newspaper reports and
editorials and Hindu devotional songs are among the
appetizers for the men and women on the street.
Most of the existing FM broadcast centers
survive on shoestring budgets, often supported by
non-governmental organizations of one kind or another.
How many of these stations would eventually be able to
transform themselves as a commercially viable and
sustainable enterprises is a matter of conjecture.
Television, however, is a different proposition.
It is not something that can be started without
substantial initial investments. And the prospects of
profits are not promising. That perhaps has been the
main reason why potential investors maintained a
prolonged silence, hesitating to come forward despite
the introduction of liberal laws and policies aimed at
encouraging the private sector. A new scenario surfaced
only three years ago when someone with a sizable purse
made a successful bid to end the government monopoly in
the audio-visual media.
"It is the viewers who
stand to gain whenever a new channel is launched," says
Durga Nath Sharma, head of state-owned Nepal Television
(NTV). "They don't need to be overwhelmed any more by
news reports based on ministerial filibusters," Sharma
adds, obliquely conceding the flaws of the network with
which he has been associated since its birth in January
1985.
Space Time Network (STN), the cable
operator controlling 60 percent of the cable viewership,
launched its Channel Nepal, the first channel in the
private sector, with the aim to reach audiences at home
and abroad. Like NTV, it also broadcasts through
satellite facilities. While NTV claims to have its
footprint on 26 countries of the Asia-Pacific region,
Channel Nepal takes pride to announce that the
audio-visual material it airs has viewers in 52
countries. Both of these channels broadcast 18 hours of
programs beamed for a large segment of the Nepali
diaspora. STN also owns a daily newspaper printed in
Nepali language.
Shortly before its launch,
Channel Nepal's owner had to face some bureaucratic
problems in his own country which surfaced in the
context of officially-inspired Indian media reports
alleging that the owner, Jamim Shah, a Nepali Muslim,
was an accomplice of a criminal wanted by Indian
security agencies. Shah denied allegations that the
money, 450 million Nepali rupees (approximately US$8.8
million), he invested in the new project was earned
through illegal businesses.
Two more channels
were added to the skyline of the Kathmandu valley last
July. Image Metro's was a modest attempt with an
investment of 100 million rupees for a nine-hours-a-day
show. Inauguration of another channel, Kantipur, was a
well-publicized event. The bulk of the investments for
this 500 million rupee project came from three Nepali
expatriates in Russia. The channel earned a distinct
identity even before it was formally launched. The
reason: Kantipur being the name of an established
publication house which owned two newspapers, one each
in English and in Nepali, and a 24-hour FM radio center.
Permission given to one particular organization
to own newspapers, a radio station and a TV channel (all
three mediums) initially drew some flak from potential
competitors, but the protest was not strong enough to
rescind the original decision. "Kantipur's news segment
is already ahead of other private channels," said
journalist Binod Bhattarai, who heads the channel's news
and current affairs department. To substantiate his
statement, Bhattarai cites the results of a viewership
survey conducted a couple of months ago. If the
investors continue to pump additional resources into it,
Kantipur, too, may be able to broadcast through
satellite by July this year. This could make the channel
a national network. Currently, it is telecasting 13
hours of programming every day to viewers in the valley.
The fifth channel to reach the drawing rooms of
Kathmanduites is NTV's baby, Metro. This channel was
launched to coincide with Nepal's biggest festival of
the year, Dashain, last October. And it is being
developed as a medium of entertainment for the rapidly
urbanizing population in the valley. Nearly half of the
about 1.2 billion rupees invested in NTV thus far has
gone for setting up this metro channel, although the
entire project has come as a gift from the government of
China to the government of Nepal.
The package
contains a well-equipped, spacious studio building
within the secure compound of central government
secretariat and a van fitted with high-tech gadgets.
Induction of the Metro edition is considered a solid
accomplishment of NTV, which is accessible to about 62
percent of the population. Officials consider this
viewership a feat in a country where only 16 percent of
the population is linked to electricity facilities. (An
irony as Nepal's hydro-power potential can be matched by
very few regions of the world. )
Despite these
achievements, NTV officials have ambivalent feelings
regarding sustainability of the new channel. Admitting
that Nepal's television market is limited, NTV head
Sharma predicts a bleak future for public sector
broadcasters because of emerging trends to patronize
private sector initiatives. "The government now needs to
take a firm decision either to place NTV and Radio Nepal
under one of its departments," says Sharma, "or to give
these agencies full functional autonomy so that they can
run in a professional manner." Two other
license-holders, for Shangri-la and Avenues channels,
say they prefer to wait and see the market responses to
the networks already on the air. But one Indian company,
TV Live, found it expedient to enter the field
immediately, disregarding Nepal's laws governing the
electronic media.
Its channel, Nepal 1, went on
the air from January 1, 2003; from studios located in
New Delhi. It is a 24-hour channel with claims of having
viewers in 47 countries. Nalini Singh, the woman behind
this Nepali language channel, has yet to make
disclosures about the costs of her project. She,
according to Himal newsmagazine, is a sister of an
incumbent Indian minister, Arun Shourie, and has made
full use of her clout to gain access to official
facilities in New Delhi. Her activities have made
Nepal's indigenous channels suspicious about Nepal 1
because not all of its dealings are transparent.
Although most of its production works are done in a
hotel in Kathmandu through two dozen-odd employees, it
is still not a registered entity in Nepal. Nobody knows
how the operators of Nepal 1 will respond once the
channel's legality is questioned.
"The question
has to begin from the title of the channel itself," says
a journalist who briefly worked for this controversial
channel. "Where did they get permission to use the word
Nepal for the channel to be run by Indians?" he wonders.
Nobody would have bothered, says the journalist who does
not want to be named, if the lady had named the channel
Sikkim 1 or Darjeeling 1 or Dehradun 1, identifying the
places with large concentrations of Nepali-speaking
people.
The Ministry of Information and
Communications, the government agency responsible for
regulating and monitoring media activities, has
maintained a mysterious silence over press reports on
ongoing irregularities. Incredible yet true, Nepal 1
continues to be an illegally-run business. It is also
costing the government of Nepal in lost revenue (taxes).
There is a growing sense of anxiety among
indigenous entrepreneurs over the entry of aliens in the
country's media market. In fact, these concerns first
surfaced two years ago on the eve of publication of an
English language daily, The Himalayan Times. The Times
and its sister title in Nepali language, Annapurna Post,
are financed by a major Indian newspaper publishing
group, The Times of India, through a conduit handling
money distributed by undisclosed sources. The group that
runs the papers also owns a FM radio station in
Kathmandu.
Nepal 1's entry into the media
spectrum has understandably increased concerns in the
kingdom. "Media is too sensitive an area to be entrusted
to foreigners," says Pushkar Lal Shrestha,
editor-in-chief of the Kamana group of publications,
which include a major broadsheet Nepali daily and an
afternoon tabloid. Constitutional rights of freedom of
expression as well as publications, Shrestha argues, are
expressly accorded to Nepali citizens, not to Indians or
to other foreigners.
Agrees Hem Raj Gyawali,
Shrestha's rival in the newspaper business. "Firms with
foreign investments may excel their presentations, but
they would be least bothered when the question of Nepali
nationalism arises," Gyawali observes.
Very few
among enthusiastic financiers appear to have bothered to
read the country's not-so-encouraging macro economic
indicators. Fewer seem to have conducted any kind of
in-depth feasibility studies before embarking on such
costly projects. They do not seem, for example, to have
realized the fact that a large section of people cannot
afford television sets. Nepal's per capita annual income
is only about $240, and about 40 percent of the people
live under the poverty line. The economy is based on
subsistence farming.
Presently, all eyes are
focused on the advertising pie at hand. With the
increase in the number of media organizations vying for
a share from that pie, the competition is getting
fiercer every day. Nonetheless, some of the investors
are hopeful that the size of pie will get bigger in days
to come. Currently, nearly one quarter of 2.5 billion
rupees worth of advertisement money goes to assist the
television networks. And despite its disadvantageous
position of being identified as the
government-controlled channel, NTV is poised to overtake
others in its attempt to get the largest share, of about
220 million rupees, in the current financial year which
ends in mid-July.
"But it would be preposterous
to assume that the situation would always remain
favorable for NTV," concedes Sharma. The government has
to urgently devise alternative plans for NTV, he
contends.
This is easier said than done,
especially at a time when the government lacks both
legitimacy as well as stability. Political turmoil of
the past few years has led to frequent changes in the
government, affecting its capability to formulate plans
and set priorities. And the media sector is no
exception. Mukunda Acharya , spokesman in the Ministry
of Information and Communication, assures that the
government is contemplating to set up a broadcasting
council to regulate the electronic media, including
cable operators. But he is understandably unable to say
that the assurance will be fulfilled any time soon. One
more relevant point here is related to the continued
absence of specific laws to regulate and standardize
advertisements churned out by both the print and
electronic media.
"This is ridiculous," says
lawyer Badri Bahadur Karki, "and should be read as a
clear indicator of the height of irresponsibility on
matters of serious public interest." If the government
had recognized the right priorities at the right time,
says Karki, it would have established the regulatory
agency long before issuing licenses for radio and
television broadcasters. The alternative to inaction
could be further action from outsiders.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication
policies.)
