States owning cable TV companies say Bill politically motivated at Centre

The draft Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill, 2023 that prohibits state or central governments, and political parties, to be in the business of television broadcasting and cable distribution, is expected to face opposition from state governments of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, among others that currently own such cable TV companies, according to people aware of the matter.

This is because these state governments believe that move is politically motivated. If the Bill becomes an Act, with this clause intact, will give powers to the Central government to broadcast its own content via Prasar Bharti that will continue to be in the business. Such content that will be broadcasted might promote the ruling party, push its ideology and influence the voters at the time of elections, according to observers.

The particular clause in the Bill has once again sparked a debate between the Centre and some States as last year the ministry of information and broadcasting had issued a similar advisory asking Union ministries, state governments and union territory administrations not to enter into any broadcasting or distribution of broadcasting activities directly. The states and other authorities were given time till December 31, 2023, for the transition.

n case the governments want to engage in TV broadcasting, they must go through public broadcaster Prasar Bharati, the advisory said. However, a year after the advisory, the state governments are looking at options to challenge the same in the courts. Now, MIB has included it under the Bill, to give it legal backing, officials said, adding that the aim is to stop politicisation of broadcasting.

Currently, state government such as that of Tamil Nadu owns Arasu Cable and educational channel Kalvi TV whereas the Andhra Pradesh government owns AP Fiber News. Once the Bill becomes an Act, such governments would have to surrender their ownership in these companies.

Section 4 of the Bill, which details‘requirements for broadcasters and broadcasting network operators, mentions that “state governments, state government departments, state government owned companies, state government undertakings, joint ventures of the state government and the private sector and entities solely or primarily funded by the state government” are not eligible for registration as a broadcaster or broadcasting network operator. Similar clause is also applicable to political parties and central government, barring Prasar Bharti.

“Previous entities (state/centre owned) operating under authorisation must transfer their operations to eligible entities in accordance with the Act,” the Bill said.

The Central government, however, may allow registration to the state government or central government-owned networks, for the fulfilment of social objectives, as may be prescribed by the government, according to the Bill.

In 2012, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), had also recommended that the central and state governments, their companies, undertakings, joint ventures with the private sector and entities funded by the governments, should not be allowed to enter the business of broadcasting.

The Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill, seeks to replace the current Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 in a bid to consolidate all existing laws related to broadcasting and cable TV as well as cover new age technologies such as OTT, under one unified framework. Financial Express