Broadcasting Bill: What purpose?

The problem with the draft Broadcasting Services Regulations Bill is not in the way it defines inappropriate content (something that disturbs the public peace or threatens the security and integrity of the state or affects India's relations with friendly countries -- these are after all Constitutional restrictions). The problem is that, having stuck to the Constitutional view of freedom of expression in deciding what is and is not acceptable, the operational details worked out are less than satisfactory.

The chairman and members of the Broadcasting Authority of India will be appointed on the recommendations of a committee comprising the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, the Lok Sabha Speaker and the Leader of the Opposition—the panel itself will be prepared by the secretary to the information & broadcasting ministry. Variations on this have been tried out for Press Council appointments, and the results are not something to be proud of.

Besides, there is no full-time appellate body where aggrieved broadcasters can seek redress against the Authority's rulings, which can include fines up to Rs 50 lakh and suspension/revocation of licences; appeals are to be made to the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (news channels are to be on a par with those making movies!) when it comes to rulings/orders about content, and to the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal when it comes to violation of the terms and conditions of the licence, after which there is the Supreme Court. At a time when news is 24x7, the delays that such a process would entail can ensure any news channel's early demise.

The other problem with the Bill is that, in an age when citizens are bombarded with news/views through various media (newspapers, cable and satellite TV, the Internet, radio and now mobile phones), it seeks to enforce outdated concepts of the media and dominance. This comes several years after the country's competition law focused on the abuse of monopoly power and rejected the old definition that classified monopoly on the basis of market share. So, the draft Bill says that no broadcasting service provider can own more than 20 per cent of another broadcasting network service provider.

In a market where there are many competing sources of news and on different media, it is unclear what this rule seeks to achieve. The cross-holding rule extends to the print media as well. Even stranger is the rule which says that no one can broadcast more than 15 per cent of the total number of channels. So, at any point in time, a Star or a Zee will have to keep tabs on the total number of channels being broadcast (separately for each city/state, with an overall ceiling for the whole economy, the Bill says) and switch off a channel or two if they have exceeded the prescribed percentage.

The Bill does not specify whether it will be 15 per cent of all channels, or 15 per cent of specified channels in any one language (say, English-language business channels). In any case, should the unit of measurement be the number of channels or share of audience, for 15 niche channels can have a smaller audience than one broad-spectrum entertainment channel. Someone needs to do a little more thinking.