Draft Broadcasting Regulation Bill raises concerns about digital control

A regulation on conflicts of interest is the need of the hour. All other regulatory measures to facilitate ‘ease of business’ are merely attempts at facilitating ‘ease of control and regulation’.

After the much-debated and controversial introduction of the IT Rules 2021, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) released the draft Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill, 2023 on November 10. The Bill proposes to scrap the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act of 1995, which regulates the broadcast sector, in favour of unified regulation for “broadcasting, OTT, Digital Media, DTH, IPTV”. According to I&B minister Anurag Thakur’s comments on X, the Broadcasting Services Bill, 2023, would advance the Prime Minister’s vision for “ease of doing business” and “ease of living”, although looking at the reactions to the IT Rules 2021, which were also introduced under the pretext of national welfare, one might wonder whether the vision here is actually the “ease of control and regulation”.

Of course, introducing regulation to serve citizens is a fundamental priority of any democratic system. However, the BJP’s history with media regulation suggests anything but public service. This is because its media regulation policies have never achieved what they promised.

The proposed Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill could amplify the erasure or the selective representation of Indian minority communities from the popular imagination and normalise a universal Hindu identity of India. As an example, consider the broad and ambiguous framing of point 36 in the draft, which states, “Where any authorised officer, thinks it necessary or expedient so to do in the public interest, he may, by order, prohibit any cable broadcasting network operator, radio broadcasting network operator, terrestrial broadcasting network operator and IPTV broadcasting network operator from transmitting or re-transmitting any programme or channel if, it is not in conformity with the prescribed programme code and advertisement code referred to in section 19 or if it is likely to promote, on grounds of religion, race, language, caste or community or any other ground whatsoever, disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between different religious, racial, linguistic or regional groups or castes or communities or which is likely to disturb the public tranquillity.” Hiring an “authorised officer” working under the government’s directions clearly cannot be separated from the government’s sphere of influence.

The Cable Television Networks (Regulation) (hereafter, CTNR) Act, 1995, was introduced to curb the menace of illegal cable television networks and regulate the programming and advertising content on television. Under the auspices of the CTNR Act, cable providers were compulsorily required to register themselves and transmit two Doordarshan channels, besides adhering to content regulation. Incidentally, just like the sporadically vitriolic sentiments against Netflix and Amazon Prime Video for “anti-national” content, in 1995, the MIB cited STAR TV’s programming as a harbinger of “cultural invasion” to push for content regulation on television. This is despite the fact that the Indian television programming we witness today is a result of the hybridity of media languages (for example, Hinglish) and the adoption of foreign programming formats (think of Bigg Boss, Kaun Banega Crorepati), both of which are directly attributed to the advent of Western broadcasters in India.

Coming back to the issue of illegal cable operators, for whom the CTRN Act was originally intended, it brought little transparency about the number of operators on the field. This was more to do with how the nexus of operators, politicians, entrepreneurs and broadcasters chose to control the transmission of television. By operating as MSOs (Multi-System-Operators), the likes of SitiCable (owned by Zee TV), Hathaway (STAR TV and Mumbai-based Raheja group), InCable (British-based NRI Hinduja family) turned crews of operators into local franchises for exclusive distribution in specific territories. The intensive rivalries between the MSOs led to collusion with the underworld, and local politicians to protect and expand their cable businesses.

Favouring direct control as a way to improve the opaque cable and television landscape, the MIB, under the aegis of the late Sushma Swaraj, amended the CTRN Act in 2003, making it mandatory for cable operators to submit reports to the government on subscribers, subscription rates and subscribers receiving programmes in basic service tier. Among other requirements, the operators were expected to transmit or retransmit programmes of any pay channel through set-top boxes offering the option of choosing television channels to consumers. The government also set up a maximum price limit on the subscription rates the cable operator could charge. However, it did not stop the MSOs, broadcasters and operators from bundling preferred channels, keeping their interest in mind, and at the expense of the consumer. In retrospect, the CTRN Act in 1995 and its amendment in 2002 are great examples of the government’s push for regulation as a way of controlling the network of information and communication infrastructures.

In this circus of dishonest, and mis-executed regulations, the government has completely or intentionally missed out on regulating the conflicts of interest that pervade the Indian media industries. Especially since the nexus between MSOs, politicians, and the vertical integration of broadcasting and cable distribution services has, for a long time, impacted the legitimacy of these regulations and the reforms they promised to bring. However, with a cursory glance at the failures of the CTRN Act, one can observe the government’s trust deficit with its citizens. So much so that the draft version of the Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill seems like a systematic attempt to control the digital infrastructure as well as every aspect of the citizen’s viewing choices. Amid all the debate around “cultural invasion” and “anti-national” programming, the government conveniently promotes oligopolistic media ownership tendencies. How this does not adversely affect the welfare of every Indian citizen it is eager to serve is anyone’s guess.

A regulation on conflicts of interest is the need of the hour. All other regulatory measures to facilitate “ease of business” are merely attempts at facilitating “ease of control and regulation”. Indian Express