Indian Broadcast Industry is quite old yet relatively new. Although television came to India in the september of 1959 as a futuristic pilot project, it was monopolized by the State-owned Doordarshan. Come forward a decade and a half to 1975 and still only seven cities in the country had access to television service. It was only in the 1990s that the market opened up, yes, for the good, domestic and foreign channels entered into satellite broadcasting regime and initiated the growth of what was going to be a fiercely competitive market. It wasn't all easy though. Channels on channels, India got into the 24*7 concept, more channels and even more channels.
And with all the competition, the run to stay intact, the run to leave others behind, the media started to lose out on its primary responsibility. Government realized the deviation from the ideal situation and started taking measures. The very first attempt at regulating Broadcast media came in the form of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act 1995. It aimed at regulating the burgeoning cable market that had emerged just a few years earlier. It included a Programme Code that imposes restrictions on the content of both programmes and advertisements shown on cable TV, for instance, nothing should be shown that denigrates children, no vulgarity/obscenity, no false alarms etc. In March 2008, the rules underwent an amendment.
Taken unawares by the dramatic boom in broadcast media, next came the Broadcasting Bill of 1997. With a view “to establish an autonomous Broadcasting Authority for the purposes of facilitating and regulating broadcasting services in India so that they become competitive in terms of quality of services, cost of services and use of new technologies”, the bill came as a response to the Supreme Court's judgement regarding the formulation of an autonomous regulatory body. As many others, this bill was put to bed before it could become an act. Infact it did not even get past a joint parliamentary committee set up to examine the legislation after it was tabled in Parliament.
Next failed attempt was the Communications Convergence Bill, 2000, which aimed to create a single regulatory authority (the Communications Commission of India) to deal with advancements in information and communications technology. It proposed to repeal the Indian Telegraph Act 1885, the Indian Wireless Telegraphy Act 1933, the Telegraph Wire Unlawful Possession Act, 1950, and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997.
The Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill, 2006, which came to public notice in July of that year, was widely criticised for provisions that gave colossal powers to the government and its representatives to cripple the media through pre-censorship. Remained a dead letter. In yet another effort to introduce legislation to regulate the broadcast sector in the country, the MIB posted the Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill, 2007 and the accompanying Content Code, the Self-Regulation Guidelines for the Broadcasting Sector on its website and announced a two-week deadline for responses to the draft documents. The broadcast industry ruthlessly opposed the propositions. The ministry was not ready to give up, neither the industry people. An agreement was reached, with the two organisations representing television channels (the Indian Broadcasting Foundation and the News Broadcasters Association) to be formed, to draft their own guidelines for self-regulation.
Headed by K.V. L. Narayan Rao the NBA presently has 20 leading news and current affairs broadcasters (comprising 45 news and current affairs channels) as its members. It has also set up the News Broadcasting Standards Disputes Redressal Authority (NBSDRA), a grievance redressal mechanism for looking into complaints against its members. We as citizens can lodge complaints to channels or to the aforementioned body.
Earlier this year, Ambika Soni reiterated that self-regulation is the best solution to the problem, she said "Our government believes that self-regulation is the best and most intelligent and independent method of regulation in a democratic set-up like ours,". I believe this self regulation goes in vain unless there is a government authority to keep a tab. The Government has set up an Electronic Media Monitoring Center (EMMC) to monitor the content of all news channels and to check any violation of the provisions of the Cable Act and the Cable Rules. It checks the content of the programmes being aired on television and reports any violations to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting for possible action. This two-tier regulation is perhaps the better solution taking into account the government's limited control and broadcasters' unlimited resistance.
A few days back, the Union Ministry passed the MIB's proposal that a five time defaulter of the code of conduct will be denied permission for renewal. NBA said the government's decision was a "direct assault on the self-regulatory regime put in place by broadcasters, which has been encouraged and recognized by the I&B ministry. Such proposed step is wholly retrograde and places broadcasters at the arbitrary mercy of the ministry; and is therefore a violation of the constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression and will not be countenanced by the NBA''. I think the NBA is being unneccesarily unreasonable here, and the step the government has taken is a good one; should have been taken before.
External regulations apart, its for the media to understand its responsibility as the fourth pillar of a democracy. It does not afford to leave loose ends with the kind of impact it has on the viewers and the society. It cannot and should not attempt to become a standalone pillar and in turn create disbalance. They say with power comes great responsibility, and the kind of power media enjoys in today's world is undisputable; for me, sadly the 'self-regulatory' media is misusing its power in the blind pursuit of money. It needs a whip. It does!
