India's state broadcaster Prasar Bharati has decided to end subscriptions with news agencies Press Trust of India (PTI) and United News of India (UNI) months after it came down upon PTI for its "anti-national coverage".
According to a report by The Indian Express, Prasar Bharati took the decision at a meeting on October 15. Sources told the newspaper that the decision was taken due to commercial considerations, and there were no "formal contracts" with these news agencies since 2006.
"Thankful to the Prasar Bharati Board Members for several key decisions earlier today on new content development, resolving long pending commercial disputes, rationalising expenditure on news agencies and technology investments to better utilise satellite capacity," Prasar Bharati Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Shashi Shekhar Vempati had tweeted after the meeting on October 15.
A senior official from the national public broadcaster said that contracts with these news agencies had not been renewed since 2006 and the subscriptions were going on in ad-hoc manner on pro-rata basis. According to the official, Prasar Bharati had also been in contact with both PTI and UNI to discuss "fresh viable pricing" but nothing had come of it.
The official added that fresh proposals for "a digital subscription to English text and related multimedia services from all domestic news agencies" would be invited and PTI and UNI can participate in it.
In June, Prasar Bharati had shot off a strongly-worded letter to PTI after the latter published an interview of Chinese Ambassador Sun Weidong, which the state broadcaster termed as "anti-national".
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