I&B Ministry
DAS expected to remain priority with new I&B Ministers
NEW DELHI: Manufacturers of Digital Addressable System set top boxes today assured the Information and Broadcasting Ministry that they had the adequate quantity of boxes needed and it was now up to local cable operators to place orders for them.
This assurance was given at a meeting chaired by I& B Secretary Bimal Julka at the initiative of the Ministry.
Ministry sources told indiantelevision.com that the manufacturers generally thanked the government for its proactive role in the matter of DAS.
The Ministry was assured that the manufacturers will be able to meet the demand of 110 million boxes needed for the final two phases of cable television digitisation.
The manufacturers appreciated the efforts of the government for resolving their long pending demand of C-form. They said they have sufficient installed capacity to meet the full demands of STBs locally and said the measures taken by the government would help the indigenous manufacturing industry to give employment to about 50,000 people and would attract an investment of about Rs 500 crore. It would generate local support facility for repair of STBs and would also help in smooth implementation of digitization initiative in the country.
The Finance Ministry had on 13 August extended the facility of Form ‘C’ under section 8(3) (b) of Central Sales Tax Act 1956 to Set Top Boxes thus fulfilling the major demand of the domestic STB manufacturers. Domestic STB manufacturers would charge CST @ 2 per cent against VAT of 12-14 per cent being paid earlier.
Meanwhile, both I&B Minister Arun Jaitley and Minister of State Col. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore have in their meetings with senior officials said that DAS has to be given the uppermost priority.
It is learnt that the meeting of the Consultative Committee of members of Parliament of the I&B Ministry slated for tomorrow will also take up the issue of DAS of cable television networks.
The Phase-III of digitization oe completed by December 2015 would cover all other urban areas (Municipal Corporations/ Municipalities) which were not covered in first two phases. Phase-IV to be completed by December 2016 would cover the rest of India.
MUMBAI: When the numbers go silent, the noise on screen gets a little harder to measure. Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has extended the suspension of television rating data for news channels, directing Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) to withhold TRPs for another four weeks. The latest order, issued on March 31, 2026, builds on an earlier directive from March 6 that had paused ratings for a month. The ministry has clarified that the blackout will continue for four weeks or until further instructions are issued whichever comes earlier keeping the industry in a prolonged state of data drought.
The reasoning, officials suggest, lies far beyond domestic screens. With geopolitical tensions in West Asia continuing to escalate, the government has flagged concerns over how such developments could influence news consumption and presentation. The move is aimed at curbing excessive sensationalism and speculative coverage during what it describes as a sensitive global moment.
For the broadcast ecosystem, the absence of Television Rating Points (TRPs) is more than symbolic, it removes the industry’s primary scorecard. Ratings dictate advertising flows, shape editorial strategies and fuel the competitive pecking order among news channels. Without them, broadcasters are effectively operating without a public performance benchmark.
The timing only adds to the complexity. Amid a high-intensity global news cycle, channels must now navigate audience engagement without the weekly feedback loop that typically drives programming decisions. Advertisers, too, are left recalibrating, leaning on proxies such as brand strength, reach and distribution instead of hard viewership data.
While framed as a temporary regulatory intervention tied to maintaining public order, the extended suspension underscores a broader unease about the tone and direction of news coverage. For now, the ratings race is on pause but the battle for attention continues, just without a scoreboard.
