House panel to discuss regulation

A meeting of the consultative committee of MPs — attached to the ministry of information and broadcasting — to be held here on February 11, will be discussing the issue of “content regulation in electronic media”.

A 10-page background note on “content regulation in electronic media”, prepared by the ministry for MPs, says “mushrooming of television channels and attempt by each channel to carve out a niche for itself, will continue to pose challenges in the arena of content regulation.”

With the booming television industry in India, the competition amongst various television channels is getting stiffer by the day.

The ministry has already granted permission to 847 private satellite television channels, out of which 449 are non-news and current affairs channels and 398 are news and current affairs TV channels as on December 31, 2015, it says.

The nature of content-related cases dealt with the ministry mainly relate to “obscenity, portrayal of women in bad taste, ill effects on children, false and defamatory news, advertisements of misleading nature” etc. In all such cases, appropriate action was taken by the ministry as per the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 and wherever necessary, advisories, warnings, order for apology scroll or going off-air for limited time period were issued, it says.

During the period January 1, 2015 to January 27, 2016, the ministry issued four general advisories: advising the channels to comply with programme and advertising codes specially to telecast the Republic Day parade with sign language commentary, restraining not to telecast the documentary India’s Daughter and live coverage of counter-terrorism operations.