The Government is looking at the possibility of allowing FM radio stations to carry news sourced from All-India Radio (AIR), which will work like a news agency.
Speaking at the inaugural session of CII Big Picture, Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar said FM radio stations can source the news from AIR and use it in the way they want.
The Minister also said that digitisation of cable TV services was on track. This will see nearly 12 crore set-top boxes being installed in the cities that come under the two phases of digitisation.
The Ministry has notified that the third phase of cable digitisation will be completed between September 30, 2014 and December 31, 2015. The fourth phase of digitisation will be completed from December 31, 2014 to December 31, 2016.
Meanwhile, the Government will also be digitising the archives of Doordarshan and All-India Radio. Javadekar said ‘expression of interest’ has already been issued and six companies have already evinced interest.
Javadekar also launched free news SMS service of AIR News Service Division later in the day. While the SMS service is already available in English, it will now be available in Hindi, Marathi, Sanskrit, Dogri and Nepali as well.