Regulation mess, good step, cut delay - Industry divided on Broadcasting bill withdrawal
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on Monday withdrew the draft Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill 2024, which has been hotly debated by industry stakeholders. The Ministry has asked the select stakeholders to return the physical copies of the draft Bill that was circulated to them on July 24 and 25.
In its X (formerly Twitter) feed, MIB stated, “The Ministry is holding a series of consultations with the stakeholders on the draft bill. Further additional time is being provided to solicit comments/ suggestions till 15th October, 2024. A fresh draft will be published after detailed consultations.”
The draft Bill was first placed in public domain on November 10, 2023, along with the explanatory notes for comments of the stakeholders and the general public.
In its second draft, the MIB expanded its remit from OTT content and digital news to include social media accounts and online video creators. According to the new draft, news and current affairs programmes would include “texts” apart from the existing “audio, visual or audio-visual content, sign, signals, writing, images”, which are “transmitted directly or using a broadcasting network”.
The industry has been very vocal about the draft broadcasting bill with some supporting it, but many opposing it as being restrictive.
Adgully reached out to industry experts to gauge their reactions on the government’s decision to withdraw the draft broadcasting bill in its current state, and not surprisingly, their reactions have been mixed.
Chintamani Rao, Strategic Marketing and Media Consultant, didn’t mince his words when he said, “The withdrawal of this draft bill is just another incident in the strange story of broadcast regulation in India. Why was the November 2023 draft replaced by a second one, and why the furtive manner in which that was done? Privately circulating physical copies of a proposed law to just a handful of unnamed entities in the broadcasting space, and keeping all other stakeholders out, was strange and disquieting, raising questions about the government’s intent.”
He called this the latest attempt at controlling legislation against the backdrop of the continuing “mess in self-regulation in media”. He said, “Years ago, the NBA and the IBF (now the NBDA and the IBDF) set up self-regulation bodies to deal with public complaints and issues relating to broadcast content. This was entirely voluntary, in the absence of any related legislation. Then, in June 2021, itching to get their hands in it, the government stepped in. They notified the Cable Television Networks (Amendment) Rules, which required all broadcasters to be subject to a three-tier grievance redressal mechanism to address public complaints. Three years later, as of the time of writing, the ministry is still drafting the relevant rules. So, meanwhile the self-regulation bodies – these two and a third, that of the NBF – are in limbo and there is, as a result, no content regulation, voluntary or otherwise.”
“We have just been through an election, which is typically a heavy season for content-related complaints, but the system that existed has been crippled, and there are no rules, no framework, to replace it! In trying to control the media, the present government is not unique – neither in its intent nor in its bumbling attempts. The last big one I recall was in 2006. But that’s another long story,” said Rao.
Meanwhile, Ashish Bhasin, Founder, The Bhasin Consulting Group, saw it as a good step that the government has taken, because for any bill or any regulation to sustainably succeed, it must have the inputs and backing of all the stakeholders. He noted, “Several stakeholders have given their thoughts and opinions on this, and obviously there is some more work that was needed to be done. The stakeholders who are on the ground and were actually dealing day to day – like the broadcasters, advertisers, advertising agencies, the digital companies – know what the ground realities are. Their inputs are very important to be taken into consideration.”
He further said, “It’s a good step because it shows that the government is listening, and hopefully the next version that will come out would have taken care of all the legitimate, or at least most of the legitimate concerns that have been raised. And if those are addressed, then it is something that would be pretty palatable to the industry at large and, therefore, will be easy to implement in that sense.”
On the other hand, Karan Taurani, Senior Analyst at Elara Capital, remarked, “Broadcasting policy was very transformational. It was meant to safeguard the interest of broadcasters. It was meant to create a level playing field. The Bill being delayed is some sort of a mind negative for broadcasters. I’m sure that some discussion would have been underway, and that’s why the delay has happened. There were some talks in terms of increasing the share in favour of distributors, where they will have a higher share in terms of content distribution via broadcasters. That could have hampered the broadcasters. That was one negative impact. Apart from that, with the adoption of a new measurement system, apart from BARC, or probably modernizing BARC as a measurement system, reducing the tariff burden, reaching more TV households, content on TV, copyright and more, it was a very transformational policy to create a level playing field.”
Taurani felt that a delay will only hurt the broadcasters, because the digital media is growing at a very fast pace and the broadcasting media, rather television broadcasting, is not able to grow beyond a point. “It has only recovered towards about 90% to 95% of the pre-Covid levels,” he noted.
Taurani stressed, “They should implement this as soon as possible to really save the broadcasting sector, which is the need of the hour, because digital media is clearly taking away share from the linear broadcasting sector in terms of ad dollars. We’ll have to wait and watch in terms of how it pans out. But this was a safety heaven, or a safeguard, which should protect the interests of the broadcasting sector in the midst of digital march.”
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