M Venkaiah Naidu to be new Information and Broadcasting Minister

The media and entertainment industry will now have a new face to work with following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet reshuffle.

M Venkaiah Naidu has been sworn in as the new Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Minister. This is in addition to the Urban Development Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation portfolio that he already handles. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley held the I&B portfolio before this.

Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore will continue to be the Minister of State, Information and Broadcasting.

The media and entertainment industry did need some attention from the Central Government as it remained largely unattended by the Modi government until now. Amongst Naidu’s immediate concerns will be to bring to conclusion the process of digitisation of Cable TV, which is at its fourth and last phase. It will also be interesting to see his stand on the long debated ad-cap issue, which has guidelines laid out for news channels not to telecast advertisements beyond 12 minutes per hour.

It now remains to be seen how this development impacts the media and entertainment industry.