EMFA appreciates hike in advertisement rates

EMFA appreciates government for hike in advertisement rates Guwahati, January 7: Electronic Media Forum Assam (EMFA) has appreciated Assam government for its decision to hike the government sponsored advertisement rates for the newspapers by 60 per cent over the existing one. Moreover, the EMFA urges the government to enhance the contributions in the form of advertisements to the Assam based satellite news channels too. Mentionable is that a meeting held on January 3 between the representatives from the State government and newspaper owners’ association in presence of State information & public relations minister Basanta Das resulted in the assurance from the government to hike the advertisement rates with effect from January 1, 2014.

Earlier, most of the newspaper owners of Assam under the banner of Northeast Newspapers Society adopted protest programmes against the failure of Assam government in hiking its advertisement rates and blacked out government advertisements and State government related news items since December 24. Following the assurance from the State information & public relations minister in the meeting, the newspaper association lifted the ban on government advertisements and news on January 3 last.

The EMFA pointed out that the news channels of Assam, as everyone is registered as ‘free to air’ channel, are more dependant on the advertisements for their survival. Hence the forum urged the government to consider improved rate of advertisements for the news channels also. However, the EMFA maintains that the managements of news channels should use the enhanced fund for the benefit of their employees with the structured salaries, other allowances, PF and ESI benefits.