KATHMANDU: The tabling of the Advertisement (Regulation) Bill by the government at the National Assembly has sparked debates and discussions and has polarized television service providers and advertisement agencies in Nepal.
The bill in question calls for establishing a regulatory board to filter out all the foreign advertisements from foreign channels. If at all foreign channels insist on showing the adverts to Nepali viewers, they have to hire Nepali artists by setting up studios in Nepal to produce pure Nepali advertisements.
The policy that this bill espouses for is popularly known as ‘Clean Feed Policy’ is awaiting the clearance from federal parliament of Nepal before it is executed as law.
Television service providers have made it clear that the clean feed policy can’t be implemented. They have argued that cable operators will be forced to close their business if the bill is endorsed without amendments.
As the data goes, 85% of the total TV channels are foreign in origin. Indian Broadcasting Forum which safeguards the interests of all the foreign channels in Nepal has threatened Government of Nepal by closing down telecast and broadcast of all the foreign channels in Nepal, if clean feed policy is imposed on them.
Executive Officer of Federation of Nepal Cable Television Association Radheshyam Lekali said that implementing clean feed comes with many hurdles.
“We don’t have our own satellite to implement the policy. Indian broadcasters transmit channels with advertisements,” he said, “They have made it clear that they can’t provide a clean feed to Nepal.”
Moreover, there is a chance to lose a huge business base already created in Nepal and the flight of money from Nepal with no future prospect of coming back again for decades and so. The policy may turn out to be disastrous when it comes to inviting more foreign investment in Nepal.
On the other hand, the Advertising Association of Nepal (AAN) has been demanding to implement the bill.
AAN President Ravindra Kumar Rijal said that Nepali advertisement business will increase by Rs 6 billion if the bill is implemented.
The incumbent government is adamant on endorsing the bill through the House. Minister for Communications and Information Technology Gokul Baskota has been saying that the government will get the bill endorsed at any cost.
Ad market to shrink if clean feed implemented
There are complaints that advertisement agencies in Nepal are victimizing Nepali media companies. Although the advertisement business is at Rs 13 billion, media companies get only Rs 10 billion in advertisements as Rs 3 billion is deducted as tax and commissions for advertising agencies.
There are assumptions that multinationals will stop advertising in Nepali media after the bill is implemented. It is likely to hit the media business in Nepal hard.
Consumers will need to pay more
Implementation of the clean feed policy will force consumers to pay more than what they are doing now. It is so because foreign broadcasters would require setting up separate facilities for scissoring foreign commercials and relaying the channels to Nepal.
This will add up costs and finally, it will fall on consumers. It will also step up the sales of set-top boxes of Indian operators. And pirated contents will flood Nepal’s market thereby throwing Nepali channels out of business.
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