By IANS
New Delhi : The "trust deficit" between private broadcasters and the government came out in the open Monday with private players protesting vehemently against the imposition of a content code.
Defending the proposed content code, Information and Broadcasting Secretary Asha Swarup said it was "incorrect" to say that India was the only country that was proposing to have such a code for the broadcast sector as codes exist already in different forms in other countries.
"Within the country itself, there has always been a programme code and an advertising code as part of the licence conditions for the service providers to abide by," Swarup said at a seminar on 'Regulation in the Entertainment Sector'. The seminar was organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).
"We have only revised these codes and propose to present them in a content code in view of the discussions with industry that have been taking place since October 2005," she stressed.
"The revised bill on the Proposed Broadcast Services Regulation, which was announced to the media and put on the ministry's website on July 20, incorporates the comments and views of the industry received during the past several years," she said.
The proposed Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill, 2007, is likely to be introduced in the monsoon session of parliament.
"There is no place for emotions and nobody is trying to bring in a guided democracy. If there is a trust deficit, it has to be addressed as the first priority by sitting across the table," Pradeep Singh, additional secretary in the information and broadcasting ministry, said while responding to objections of private broadcasters.
"The content code already exists. It is merely being fleshed out," Singh emphasised.
Arvind Kumar, director (broadcast policy and legislation), in the information and broadcasting ministry, made a detailed presentation on the Proposed Broadcast Services Regulations Bill and Draft Content Code and Guidelines.
Private broadcasters were, however, near unanimous in rejecting the content code which they saw as an attempt to shackle the autonomy of media.
The provisions of the Regulatory Bill would shackle the industry and were not enabling but disabling, said Sunil Lulla, chief executive officer of Times Global Broadcasting Company Ltd.
The timeframe, set by the government for eliciting the responses (Aug 5, 2007) was unrealistic as the issues involved were of vital concern to a growing economy, he said.
Amit Khanna, chairman of the FICCI Committee on Convergence and chairman, Reliance Entertainment Ltd, called for a re-look at cross-media restrictions and described the sector equity caps as the worst form of piecemeal legislation.
G. Krishnan, CEO of Aajtak, said that guidelines rather than regulation would have helped in encouraging more responsibility in broadcasting media. "It is improper to put regulation in place. Guidelines should have been good enough. The fourth estate was like an auditor and you can't put restrictions on auditors," he said.
"Any regulation on a free press would be regressive and set us back by many, many years," Krishnan stressed.
Besides top bureaucrats of the information and broadcasting industry, leading players in the broadcast sector participated in the seminar.
News broadcasters have also vehemently rejected the proposed content code on the grounds that it gives the government powers to shackle the autonomy of media.
The information and broadcasting ministry has released the draft of the Self Regulation Guidelines for the Broadcasting Sector which require the broadcasters to share responsibility for the content and advertisement aired by them.
The content code also wants the broadcasters to respect the privacy of persons and not use material relating to personal of private affairs unless it is in the larger identifiable public interest.
The code also requires that the programmes be classified into four categories – 'U', 'S', 'U/A' and 'A' and has gone ahead to specify time restrictions as to when the U/A and the A category programmes can be broadcast.