Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Tuesday, Jul 24, 2007
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Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Tuesday, Jul 24, 2007 ePaper |
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Regulatory Bodies & Rulings Industry & Economy - Radio/TV ‘Broadcast Regulatory Authority will be an independent body’
Industry players questioned the very basis for the Government to regulate content.
Our Bureau New Delhi, July 23 With private broadcasters on one side and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on the other, settling differences over the proposed Broadcast Bill and the Content Code was not easy. However, both sides gave it a shot at a seminar on ‘Regulation in the Entertainment Sector’, organised by FICCI, in the Capital today. Industry players questioned the very basis for the Government to regulate content, an accusation that the Ministry said came from a “trust deficit”. A key concern was the independence of the regulatory body proposed by the Government, to which the Ministry’s answer was that the SEBI and TRAI had both been established by the respective Ministries. “The Broadcast Regulatory Authority of India will provide a redressal to consumers and would be an independent body,” said Ms Asha Swarup, Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. On ‘Content Code’, Mr Pradeep Singh, the Additional Secretary, said that it already existed in the form of what applied to the public broadcaster since it had been cited in several courts, including the Delhi High Court. “The code is just being fleshed out, and if you don’t like the way its being fleshed out it can be remedied,” said Mr Singh. Other issues raised where the provision of “restriction on accumulation interest” that sought to limit financial interest of either content provider in broadcasting distribution business, or vice versa, or in cross media ownership, which Mr G. Krishnan, Executive Director and CEO, and Mr Amit Khanna, Chairman, Reliance Entertainment Pvt Ltd, said was unacceptable. Ms Swarup explained that the move was intended to protect broadcast content providers from large companies that had interest both in broadcasting distribution as well as content and could dictate terms. And the ownership limits would only be revised upwards with the growth of the industry. On behalf of the radio industry, Mr Tarun Katial, COO, BIG FM, said that as the medium was as local as it could get and already served the Ministry’s interest in ensuring local content and local employment, and it was time news programming was allowed on private radio channels. The Ministry promised to look into it and added that it would also consider allowing for more than one frequency per operator per city in ‘Phase Three’ of FM radio. Mr Chintamani Rao, CEO, Independent News Services, questioned the provision of mandatory carriage and mandatory sharing of sports broadcasting signals with Prasar Bharati.
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