TV Times

While private electronic media groups claim that the sudden imposition of levy on imported television programmes and advertisements has left the television industry in Sri Lanka in a quandary. Filmmakers, teledrama directors, actors and some of the private television channel heads had mixed reaction. While some commended the move others criticised the way it was implemented.

What was evident in our interviews with a cross section of professionals who are directly and indirectly involved in the art were that some of the media institution themselves have been responsible for the regulations and imposition of levies. On the other hand there are problems not with regard to the levy but the way it was implemented.

"On principle we have fought for a priority for the local art industry. Whether it is cinema or TV, priority should be given to protect and develop local art, for a country is identified by art."

The local film industry is threatened due to the excessive import of foreign productions that have flooded and destroyed the local market. At the inception of television there were very rigid rules and regulations with regard to telecast.

Former French President Francois Mitterrand once said that 'If France has to protect its image as a nation it can be done by protecting its visual image and it must not be subservient to foreign influences. If that was allowed France will become a slave nation to all foreign broadcasters'", said the experienced filmmaker.

If we take France for an example, there are only six national TV channels in such a big country like France while Sri Lanka has 11 channels and 65% of air time is dedicated to the local programmes.

What has happened here was the problems were created by private media channels themselves. There has to be some kind of balance and I personally feel that the some of the private TV channels looked at profit making only.

"They should have foreseen the repercussions and preserved the equilibrium.

We are not affected by American cinema. I have the greatest respect for India, the country and the nation but when we count the Indian films which were screened from 1970s up to now it would be nearly a million. As far as I know they have never bought a single film from Sri Lanka.

We have a very good teledrama industry with fine direction and at present 80% of the cinema artistes have to thank teledramas for their survival.

With regard to the TNL channel the levy is not going to affect us. Our 85% of the programmes are locally made. About 6 to 7 hours of programmes we cover with foreign features and we should be able to manage it with locally made productions.

However this would affect some channels which are mainly run on international programmes and international advertisements. For example advertisement on airlines would not be telecast. And the channel which mainly runs on foreign programmes and which cannot afford the levy would have to close down.

Television is a very young industry and at the beginning there were very good teledramas like 'Yashorawaya', 'Kadulla' and 'Giraya'. But during the past few years a large number of low quality Indian programmes were brought to the country. How they induced the audience to watch these programmes was with extraordinary publicity campaigns including massive billboards around the country.

"If a production was really good, why was this extraordinary publicity?' questioned the NFC Chairman. There are nearly 300 good teledramas which were passed by the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation that are queued up for viewing.

There are 50-70 films telecast through the various channels and at least five films are daily available for the TV viewers.

If we want to screen a film there is a censor board to pass the film but there is no one to look what is telecast on local television. There should be a 'regulatory body' which is responsible to the Minister with regard to the telecast of the imported films.

And the money collected from the levy will be re-channelled for the benefit of the local film and teledrama industry.

We promote mostly English language programmes and the imposition of the levy is not at all economical. We locally produce some business and cookery programmes but when it comes to songs and movies people want to see American productions. These programmes are preferred by the audience. Our audience is different and we cannot convert it to a Sinhala language channel now. This move without consulting the TV channel is not fair.

As a channel with a motto 'Sri Lankeeya Abhimanaya' (The pride of Sri Lanka) we have dedicated 75% of our programmes for local productions.

But if this move had been taken after consulting television stations it would have been better. There are problems that are common to all TV stations and problems that our own institution is facing. The amount imposed is too much. However we are planning how we are going to cope-up with the situation. This levy is going to affect each channel differently.

What I personally believe is that they shouldn't have imposed the levy. Despite war or anything else we are a democratic country. If the audience wants to see them, let them see. This is a problem of the quality of local teledramas. When the teledrama 'Isuru Yogaya' was telecast everybody switched on to Rupavahini. What we have to do is attract the audience with quality local productions.

On the other hand there are a lot of artistes such as dubbing artistes depending on this industry. Instead of the levy they should appoint people to improve the quality.

The move by the government is not at all a censorship on media or a violation of fundamental rights.

This is a very fair decision by the government.

The private television stations all this time imported programmes without even paying the royalty fee which is subjected to customs duty.

All this time they had not been paying the tax and at least the government had implemented a levy which is a good move.

"If the present trend of low quality productions continue to flood the country, no new director would be able to produce from this country in future."

"Businessmen will argue when they lose their profit but as artistes we are thinking about the country and its arts and the future generation."

And at the same time the most important thing is that the money that is collected from this levy should be channelled to the development of the local cinema and teledrama".

"We will not be compromising and we are not going to break the bond developed between our channel and our audience by stopping any programmes. We are a people's channel and this is a gross violation of the fundamental rights of the people."

It is the discretion of the people to decide what to see and nobody can put any restriction on that. It is like imposing restrictions on what to eat and what to drink.

South Asian culture is spreading around the world and at present Bollywood is joined up even with Hollywood.

There is a huge market for these TV productions. We must find means to develop our arts to attract this market. Language is not going to be a barrier.

With regard to the film industry when a film is made, separate copies are made for theatre release and for TV release.

"We too telecast locally made teledramas but we don't have 300 teledrama queues up like some of the state controlled TV stations. And even out of them there might be low quality teledramas".

"Though there are certain problems with regard to the implementation the objective of government move to promote local art is commendable. This happened because of the myopic or short-sighted vision of some of the broadcasters."

However with this move our channel is going to be affected marginally as we are a channel that promotes local industry and the programmes are based on the local productions. But the time frame given was not practical and there is a problem with the rates such Rs. 90,000 for a dubbed and Rs 75,000 for 30 minutes. What they could have done was to introduce separate air time for international programmes like the late night belts for imported programmes.