Stakeholders of the advertising and media industry on Monday stressed on the urgent implementation of ‘Clean Feed Policy’ in advertising on the foreign television channels instead of gradual implementation over a year as mentioned in the policy.

The previous government led by KP Sharma Oli had introduced the Clean Feed Policy 2016 on July 22 with the plan to implement the policy within a year. Officials of advertising agencies said that the implementation of the policy is expected to double Nepal’s advertisement business within a year as foreign advertisers will have to invest in Nepal to cater to the Nepali consumers. 

“As the implementation of the policy does not harm anybody in Nepal, why to wait for a year to implement the policy?” they asked at an interaction organised by the Advertising Association of Nepal (AAN) on Monday.

As per the plan, an ‘Implementation Action Plan’ will be approved by mid-September, amendment to National Broadcasting Regulation by mid-October and prepare separate regulation on television signal distribution and cable distribution by mid-February 2017.

Likewise, separate rules and structure has been planned for advertisement production, distribution, publications and transmission by mid-April 2017 and fully implement the clean feed by mid-July 2017.  Currently, several foreign channels, mostly Indians, are transmitted in the country and they also transmit advertisements along with TV programmes. The advertising agencies had long been demanding that such policy be introduced.

Speaking at the interaction, AAN President Santosh Shrestha termed the introduction of policy as a gift of the Oli-led government, asked the current government to implement the policy without delay.

“The government has also asked stakeholders to submit the roadmap for the implementation of the policy and we have to prepare the road map,” he said. AAN has also formed a clean feed committee under Nirmal Raj Poudel, former president of AAN.

Poudel said that multinational companies using the foreign channels to transmit advertisements targeted at Nepali consumers, has affected the growth of domestic advertisement industry and advertisements in domestic media.

Foreign channels are taking double benefit in Nepal by feeding advertisement along with content as they charge for subscription.

“If the clean policy is implemented, Nepal’s advertisement market may double to Rs10 billion from the current estimated at Rs5 billion,” said Poudel, adding that domestic television channels would benefit most while other media would also get good share of increased advertisement business.

Chairman of the Nepal Media Society Puskar Lal Shrestha said that the society has been voicing concerns over the issue since the beginning and that there should not be any delay in implementation of the policy.

The stakeholders were, however, expressed concerns over the provision in the policy on ‘studying the prospect of feeding domestic advertisements in foreign channels’ that run without advertisement once the policy is

implemented.

They stressed on giving unified message that the policy of feeding domestic advertisements in foreign channels should not be entertained at any cost. “We want that domestic media be benefitted after the clean feed policy is introduced,” said Bhaskar Raj Rajkarnikar, former president of AAN. “The provision of allowing domestic advertisement on foreign channels will not help this cause.”

Kantipur Media Group Assistant General Manager Mahesh Swar said that besides implementing the clean feed policy to help boost domestic advertisement industry, other alternatives should be explored to increase the advertisement business.