MoIC to Introduce Clean Feed in Foreign Channels

Ministry of Information and Communication (MoIC) is planning to introduce clean feed in transmission of foreign television channels in Nepal. Clean feed is the transmission of broadcast content without advertisement.

MoIC has prepared a regulation to regulate downlink and clean feed, said ministry secretary Sushil Ghimire in an interaction here today. "The new regulation has clearly mentioned that the foreign pay channels cannot transmit advertisements in Nepal," he said. Around 60 pay channels are aired in Nepal by cable operators and the popular ones are: Star, Sony, Zee, Set Max, Discovery and National Geographic. "After the enforcement of clean feed policy they should have additional feeder for Nepal," he said. South Asian nations like Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Bangladesh have adopted clean feed policy for foreign broadcasters. Australia has adopted voluntary clean feed policy and generated Australian $48 million revenue from local advertisements.

The advertising industry has been seeking a clean feed policy for years. "If implemented, an additional Rs 1.5 billion advertisement market will be created in a year," said Nirmal Raj Paudel, president of Advertising Agencies Association of Nepal (AAN). The advertisement market is Rs 3 billion.

Clean feed is a tool to stop foreign influence also. "We need this to preserve our culture and language," said Prabal Raj Pokhrel, professor of journalism at Tribhuvan University. "It will eliminate dubbing Hindi language advertisements in Nepali," he said adding most of such advertisements looks ridiculous and lack lingual sweetness.

AAN has presented a fourpoint suggestion to implement clean feed policy here. The suggestions are -- respect for law of the land by foreign media, pay channel cannot take fee from viewers if they want to transmit advertisement, nonpay channel should have right to transmit advertisements and dubbing of foreign language advertisements must stopped.

Though MoIC has finalized the regulation regarding clean feed, it has not presented in the cabinet yet. "We will send it to the cabinet soon," MoIC secretary Nepal said.