ITV

Category: Regulators

  • I&B ministry registers BCCC as Level II self-regulatory body under amended Cable TV rules

    I&B ministry registers BCCC as Level II self-regulatory body under amended Cable TV rules

    New Delhi: The ministry of information and broadcasting (I&B) has registered the Broadcasting Content Complaints Council (BCCC) as a self-regulatory body for redressal of grievances against the non-news television channels under the Cable TV Networks (Amendment) Rules, 2021 notified recently.

    Founded in June 2011 by the Indian Broadcasting Federation (IBF), BCCC is an independent self-regulatory body for non-news general entertainment channels that examines content-related grievances against over 300 non-news channels in the country.

    “The BCCC shall perform all functions specified for a self-regulatory body in Rule 18 of the Cable Television Networks (Amendment) Rules, 2021,” the ministry said. While Justice (retd) AP Shah was the BCCC’s founding chairperson, Justice (retd) Gita Mittal is the present chairperson of the Council.

    “It is a pleasant recognition of ten years of very hard work done by the BCCC under its various learned chairpersons,” BCCC’s general secretary Ashish Sinha told PTI.

    Under the amended Cable TV network rules notified by the government in May, self-regulatory bodies of TV channels are required to be registered with the central government.

    The amended rules stipulate a three-layer grievance redressal mechanism — self-regulation by broadcasters, self-regulation by the self-regulating bodies of broadcasters, and an oversight mechanism by the central government. The rules require each broadcaster to establish a grievance or complaint redressal mechanism, appoint an officer to deal with the complaints, display the contact details of their grievance officer on their website or interface and be a member of a self-regulating body.

    As per the rules, any person aggrieved by the content of a programme of a channel may file his/her complaint in writing to the broadcaster first. “The broadcaster shall, within 24 hours of a complaint being filed, generate and issue an acknowledgment to the complainant for his information and record. The broadcaster shall dispose of the complaint and inform the complainant of its decision within 15 days of receipt of such complaint,” the rules state.

  • Centre moves SC seeking transfer of pleas challenging IT rules

    Centre moves SC seeking transfer of pleas challenging IT rules

    New Delhi: The Centre on Tuesday approached Supreme Court seeking transfer of all pending pleas challenging its new IT rules to the apex court.

    Numerous petitions challenging the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, are currently pending in various high courts across the country. The new rules notified on 25 February, came into effect on 26 May recommend a three-tier mechanism for the regulation of all online media.

    While the government has maintained that the new rules were introduced to make social media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and Instagram more accountable and responsible for the content hosted on their platform, many have challenged the new rules over issues of privacy. Several petitions are pending in several courts, including the Delhi high court.

    In June, Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) , composed of digital arms of 13 leading media companies of the country had moved high court against the rules, which it said ” violate the fundamental right of equality (Article 14) and freedom of speech and expression (Article 19(1)(a)”.

    The Foundation of Independent Journalism (the non-profit company that publishes The Wire) and legal website, LiveLaw has also filed petitions against the new rules

    Meanwhile, Delhi high court has directed Twitter to inform it by 8 July as to when it will appoint a resident grievance officer in compliance with the new IT Rules after the microblogging platform informed court that it was in the process of doing so.

    The government had earlier announced that if significant social media intermediaries, those with more than 50 lakh registered users failed to comply with the new requirements by 25 May, they will lose their intermediary status. On Monday, the Centre, had filed an affidavit in the high court, stating that any non-compliance amounts to breach of provisions of IT Rules, leading to Twitter losing its immunity conferred under the IT Act.

    Under the new rules, the digital publishers are required to take urgent steps for appointing a grievance officer, if not done, and place all relevant details in the public domain. “They also need to constitute self-regulatory bodies through mutual consultation so that the grievances are addressed at the level of publishers or the self-regulating bodies themselves,” according to the ministry.

  • NTO 2.0 verdict: Who wins what?

    KOLKATA: One of the major issues that has dominated the pay TV ecosystem in India is in constant conflict between stakeholders and the sector regulator, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).  With the Bombay high court pronouncing its verdict on the amended new tariff order matter, one of the long-fought battles between the two may have come to an end. It upheld the constitutional validity of Trai’s NTO 2.0 but set aside the second clause of twin pricing conditions. The court’s decision is receiving mixed reviews from senior industry executives.

    On Wednesday, the division bench of Justices Amjad Sayyed and Anuja Prabhudessai passed judgement on several petitions filed by broadcasters and industry bodies like the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF). The bench stated that the challenge to the constitutional validity of the 2020 rules and regulations of Trai does not hold any water. At the same time, it termed one of the twin conditions arbitrary according to which the maximum retail price of an a-la-carte channel could not be more than one third of the maximum rate of a channel in the bouquet.

    “We welcome this verdict of the honourable Bombay high court on amendment in tariff regulation. The full implementation of the amendment will bring more transparency in industry and give more choices and power to the customer. We are hopeful that this will get implemented soon. It is good for all stakeholders in the industry value chain,” GTPL Hathway cable TV head & chief strategy officer Piyush Pankaj said.

    Others in the business are not so sure because they believe it will definitely lead to a decline in subscription revenues. Considerably, major broadcasters have not already witnessed a fall in subscription revenue after partial implementation of NTO 2.0.  But they fear that after this verdict, there will be a faster movement towards a-la-carte from bouquets thus leading to lower ARPUs.

    One of the senior executives with a leading broadcaster said squashing the second twin condition can be looked at as a big win for broadcasters. This clause had the potential to effectively hamper broadcasters from packaging their channels as they had to bundle similarly priced offerings together as part of the bouquet. 

    However, the grounds that it has been struck down on are not very solid, another senior executive added. This battle was unnecessary and a fight for power, he noted, especially given the cost. Moreover, very few broadcasters were looking at pushing high pricing for channels anyway. Even these broadcasters also cannot go for high pricing now due to changed market dynamics in the last one year due to pandemic. As Trai still has substantive grounds to reclaim whatever has been lost, they might look at rechallenging it, the executive noted.

    “We believe there is a high likelihood of this being contested in the supreme court by Trai as the entire reasoning of getting the NTO 2.0 was to cap discount and move to selective viewing which the NTO 1.0 did not fulfil,” Elara Capital VP research analyst (media) Karan Taurani said in a note.

    “We continue to believe that the negative impact of NTO 2.0 is highest for Star whose bouquet prices have a higher discount factor and lowest for Sun TV whose discounting of bouquet vs ala carte is already at very low levels, which will lead to continued outperformance for Sun TV on subs revenue front despite NTO 2.0. On the other hand, this order is low to moderately negative for Zee,” stated Taurani.

    Back in 2018, Madras high court had also set aside the capping of discounts to 15 per cent mentioned in the Tariff Order and Interconnection Regulations of 2017. However, the battle reached the supreme court where the regulator won the case. Within a year of implementation of the regulation, the authority brought changes which irked broadcasters starting the second battle. Now are we in for the third?

  • Bombay HC upholds TRAI’s NTO 2.0 except second provision of twin conditions

    KOLKATA: After a long legal battle between broadcasters and the telecom regulatory authority of India (TRAI), the Bombay High Court on Wednesday pronounced judgment on the amended new tariff order (NTO 2.0) case. 

    The court has upheld the constitutional validity of NTO 2.0 but has partly struck down the second provision of the twin conditions.

    As per the second provision, the a-la-carte rates of each pay channel (MRP), forming part of a bouquet, shall in no case exceed three times the average rate of a pay channel of the bouquet of which such pay channel is a part. The court has mentioned the clause as an arbitrary condition. 

    The Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), along with other broadcasters had filed a writ petition in the Bombay High Court against TRAI in January 2020, soon after the regulations came into place.

    More to follow…

  • Parliamentary panel asks Google, Facebook to comply with new IT rules

    New Delhi: The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology (IT) has directed US tech giants Facebook and Google to comply with the new IT rules, which came into effect on 26 May.

    Both Facebook and Google officials had appeared before the Parliamentary panel on Tuesday regarding the issue of safeguarding citizens’ rights and preventing the misuse of social/online news media platforms. The panel chaired by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor had asked the officials of the social media sites to appear in person on the issue.

    According to media reports, the representatives were made aware of certain loopholes in their existing data protection and privacy policy mechanism and were asked to have stringent safeguards in place to protect the data privacy and data security of their users. The meeting was attended by Facebook India associate general counsel Namrata Singh and the company’s director of public policy Shivnath Thukral.

    Google officials also informed the committee that between January and March 2021, YouTube removed over 9.5 million videos for violating its community guidelines. “95 percent of these videos were first flagged by machines rather than humans. Of those detected by machines, 27.8 percent never received a single view & 39 percent received one and ten views,” officials told the committee, “During this same quarter, YouTube terminated over 2.2 million channels for violating its Community Guidelines. In this same period. YouTube removed more than one billion comments, the majority of which were spam and were detected automatically.”

    While officials from Facebook, Google, and Twitter have also appeared before the panel, representatives of YouTube and other Social Media Intermediaries will also be summoned in the coming weeks over the issue.

    The new IT (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code) rules, 2021 were notified on 25 February and came into effect on 26 May. The rules recommend a three-tier mechanism for the regulation of all online media. As per the rules, each significant social media intermediary is required to appoint a chief compliance officer, a nodal contact person for 24×7 coordination with law enforcement agencies, and a resident grievance officer. All three should be resident Indians.

  • HC issues notice to Centre over media firms’ plea against IT rules

    New Delhi: The Madras high court has issued a notice to Centre over a plea filed by the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) against the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021.

    This petition challenged the constitutionality of the Rules and alleged that it violates the fundamental right of equality (Article 14), freedom of speech and expression (Article 19(1)(a), and the right to practice any profession or to carry on any occupation, trade or business (Article 19 (1) (g)). The association sought a stay on Rules 12, 14, and 16 of the IT Rules 2021.

    Formed in 2018, DNPA is an organisation comprising of the digital arms of leading media companies of the country, including the ABP Network, Amar Ujala, Dainik Bhaskar Corp, Express Network, HT Digital Streams, IE Online Media Services, NDTV Convergence, Lokmat Media, Jagran Prakashan, TV Today Network, The Malayala Manorama, Times Internet Limited, and Ushodaya Enterprises. 

    According to DNPA, the online news portals of traditional media houses, which run newspapers and TV channels, do not come within the purview of IT Rules.  “While ‘newspaper’ is not governed by the IT Rules 2021, ‘publisher of news and current affairs content’ is governed by Part three of the IT Rules 2021. This implies that some of the members of DNPA association which are primarily newspaper publishers would not be governed by the IT Rules 2021 if they only published newspapers. But by making available, inter alia, the same content on a digital platform, they ought to be governed by the IT Rules 2021. Therefore, the IT Rules 2021 have created a distinction that is vague and arbitrary…” stated the plea, Live Law reported.

    The plea also contended that there are several regulations in place already for traditional and legacy media outlets in print and broadcasting, which have been operating before the advent of the internet and digital media. The petition filed by DNPA and journalist Mukund Padmanabhan was tagged along with the petition filed by Carnatic singer TM Krishna, which also claimed that the IT Rules 2021 were in violation of the Right to Privacy.  

    The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 that into effect on 26 May recommend a three-tier mechanism for the regulation of all online media. Under the rules, the digital publishers are required to take urgent steps for appointing a grievance officer, if not done, and place all relevant details in the public domain. “They also need to constitute self-regulatory bodies through mutual consultation so that the grievances are addressed at the level of publishers or the self-regulating bodies themselves,” according to the ministry.

  • MIB seeks public comments on the draft Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill 2021

    New Delhi: The government has sought public comments on the draft Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill 2021 which proposes to penalise film piracy with a jail term and empower the Centre to order re-certification of an already certified film in case of complaints.

    The general public can send their comments on the draft bill by 2 July.

    “The ministry of information and broadcasting proposes to introduce the Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill, 2021 which will make the process of sanctioning of films for exhibition more effective, in tune with the changed times and curb the menace of piracy,” it said in a statement.

    Age-based film certification

    Among the proposed changes, there are provisions relating to certification of films under ‘unrestricted public exhibition’ category which are proposed to be amended so as to further sub-divide the existing UA category into age-based categories – U/A 7+, U/A 13+ and U/A 16+.

    The draft also adds a provision to grant revisionary powers to the government on account of violation of Section 5B (1) (principles for guidance in certifying films) of the Act. “Since the provisions of Section 5B(1) are derived from Article 19(2) of the Constitution and are non-negotiable, it is also proposed in the Draft Bill to add a proviso to sub-section (1) of section 6 to the effect that on receipt of any references by the Central Government in respect of a film certified for public exhibition, on account of violation of Section 5B(1) of the Act, the Central Government may, if it considers it necessary so to do, direct the chairman of the Board to re-examine the film,” said the ministry.

    Prohibition of unauthorized recording

    The release of pirated versions of films on the internet, causes huge losses to the film industry and government exchequer. “In most cases, illegal duplication in cinema halls is the originating point of piracy. At present, there are no enabling provisions to check film piracy in the Cinematograph Act, 1952 making it necessary to have a provision in the Act to check film piracy,” said the ministry in a press statement.

    The draft bill proposes to insert section 6AA which prohibits unauthorised recording, according to which, no person shall, without the written authorization of the author, be permitted to use any audio-visual recording device in a place to knowingly make or transmit or attempt to make or transmit or abet the making or transmission of a copy of a film or a part thereof.

    “If any person contravenes the provisions of section 6AA, he shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than three months but which may extend to three years and with a fine which shall not be less than Rs three lakh but which may extend to five percent of the audited gross production cost or with both,” it added.

    The Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill, 2019

    The government had introduced the Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill, 2019 in the Rajya Sabha in February, 2019 to impose strict penalties against unauthorised duplication of films in cinema halls. The draft Bill prohibited a person from using a recording device to make a copy of a film, without authorisation and made it a punishable crime with an imprisonment of up to three years and a fine of up to Rs 10 lakh, or both.

    Later, the standing committee on information technology (2019-20) presented its report on the Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill, 2019 in the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha on 16 March 2020.

    “The observations and recommendations made by the committee in the report have been examined and it is proposed to suitably revise the clauses in the Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill, 2019 based on the recommendations,” said the ministry.

    The comments may be submitted at the following email address: dhanpreet.kaur@ips.gov.in

  • Reliance Jio tops net mobile user additions in March: TRAI

    New Delhi: Reliance Jio has gained over 79 lakh mobile users in March, securing a comfortable lead over rivals Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, according to the latest monthly data released by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

    The Mukesh Ambani-led company took its customer base to about 42.29 crore. The net mobile user additions in March are double the number recorded in February when the company had added over 42 lakh users.

    On the other hand, Airtel’s user base rose to 35.23 crore with the addition of 40.5 lakh wireless users in March, while Vodafone Idea gained 10.8 lakh customers during March, compared to the previous month. The latter’s customer base has now grown to 28.37 crore, as of 31 March.

    According to the TRAI data for March, the number of telephone subscribers in India rose to 120 crore, thereby showing a monthly growth rate of 1.12 per cent. The monthly growth rates of urban and rural telephone subscriptions were 0.92 per cent and 1.37 per cent respectively as of 31 March.

    The total wireless subscribers increased to 118 crore at the end of March, recording a monthly growth rate of 1.13 per cent. Wireless subscriptions in urban areas increased to 64.5 crore at the end of March and that in rural areas rose to 53.5 crore during the same period. Monthly growth rates of urban and rural wireless subscriptions were 0.93 per cent and 1.38 per cent respectively.

    All service areas except Kerala showed growth in their wireless subscribers during the month of March-21. Mumbai area showed maximum growth of 2.93 per cent in its wireless subscriber base during the month.

    According to TRAI, the private access service providers held 89.6 per cent market share of the wireless subscribers while the two PSU access service providers BSNL and MTNL had a market share of only 10.32 per cent, as of 31 March.

    “As per the reports received from 421 operators in the month of March 2021, the number of broadband subscribers increased from 76.5 crore at the end of February 2021 to 77.8 crore at the end of March 2021 with a monthly growth rate of 1.70 per cent, “said the telecom regulator.

    The top five service providers constituted 98.82 per cent market share of the total broadband subscribers. Among these service providers were Reliance Jio (42.5 crore), Bharti Airtel (19.1 crore), Vodafone Idea (12.3 crore).

  • MIB amends Cable TV Rules for redressal of broadcast-related complaints

    New Delhi: The Centre has amended the Cable Television Network Rules to provide for a three-layer statutory mechanism for the redressal of consumer’s complaints relating to the content broadcast by TV channels.

    The Cable TV Networks (Amendment) Rules, 2021 was notified in an official gazette on Thursday.

    “The @MIB_India has by amending the Cable Television Network Rules, 1994, developed a statutory mechanism to redress citizens’ grievances & complaints against programmes of TV channels. The @MIB_India has also decided to recognize Statutory Bodies of TV channels under CTN Rules,” tweeted information and broadcasting minister Prakash Javadekar. 

     

     

    At present, there is an institutional mechanism by way of an inter-ministerial committee to address grievances of citizens relating to violation of the Programme/Advertising Codes under the Rules. Similarly, various broadcasters have also developed their internal self-regulatory mechanism for addressing grievances. “However, a need was felt to lay down a statutory mechanism for strengthening the grievance redressal structure. Some broadcasters had also requested for giving legal recognition to their associations/bodies,” said the ministry of information and broadcasting (I&B) on Thursday.

    The amended rules stipulate a three-layer grievance redressal mechanism — self-regulation by broadcasters, self-regulation by the self-regulating bodies of broadcasters and an oversight mechanism by the central government. The rules require each broadcaster to establish a grievance or complaint redressal mechanism, appoint an officer to deal with the complaints, display the contact details of their grievance officer on their website or interface and be a member of a self-regulating body.

    As per the rules, any person aggrieved by the content of a programme of a channel may file his/her complaint in writing to the broadcaster first. “The broadcaster shall, within 24 hours of a complaint being filed, generate and issue an acknowledgement to the complainant for his information and record. The broadcaster shall dispose of the complaint and inform the complainant of its decision within 15 days of receipt of such complaint,” the rules state.

    The complainants can file an appeal with the self-regulatory body of broadcasters if they are not satisfied with the decision of the broadcaster’s grievance redressal officer or the decision of the broadcaster is not communicated to them within 15 days. The complainant may prefer an appeal to the self-regulating body, of which the broadcaster is a member, within 15 days therefrom.

    The self-regulating body will be required to dispose of the appeal within 60 days of the receipt of the appeal, convey its decision in the form of guidance or advisory to the broadcaster, and inform the complainant of such a decision within 15 days. “Where the complainant is not satisfied with the decision of the self-regulating body, he may, within 15 days of such decision, prefer an appeal to the central government for its consideration under the oversight mechanism,” said the rules.

    The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) will hear complaints regarding the violation of the advertising code, take a decision within 60 days of the receipt of a complaint and communicate the same to the broadcaster and the complainant.

    According to the amended rules, there may be one or more self-regulatory body of broadcasters, provided that every such body shall be constituted by a minimum of 40 broadcasters. The self-regulating body shall, after its constitution, register itself with the central government “within a period of 30 days from the date of publication of these rules, or within 30 days from the date of its constitution, whichever is earlier,” the rules stipulate.

    The government will set up an Inter-Departmental Committee (IDC) to take up the hearing of matters “arising out of the appeals against the decisions taken at Level I or Level II of the grievance redressal mechanism”. It will also hear complaints referred by the central government.

    According to the ministry, the notification is significant as it paves the way for a “strong institutional system for redressing grievances” while placing accountability and responsibility on the broadcasters and their self-regulating bodies.

    At present there are over 900 television channels that have been granted permission by MIB all of which are required to comply with the Programme and Advertising Code laid down under the Cable Television Network Rules.

  • Tussle between Centre and Twitter intensifies

    KOLKATA: The conflict between Twitter and the Indian government gets even murkier as the microblogging site has “failed to comply” with new IT rules. According to multiple reports, Twitter has lost its legal protection as an intermediary over non-compliance with the rules, which could impact its business overall as India remains one of the most critical markets for the platform. According to an estimate, the platform has a user base of 1.75 crore in India, which is one of its top five markets.

    “Numerous queries are arising as to whether Twitter is entitled to safe harbour provision. However, the simple fact of the matter is that Twitter has failed to comply with the Intermediary Guidelines that came into effect from the 26th of May,” union information technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad tweeted on Wednesday.

    Prasad further added it has deliberately chosen the path of non-compliance despite multiple opportunities. His statement amid the reports of Twitter losing its “safe harbour” immunity has raised the question on Twitter’s future in India.

    On the other side, Twitter said that it appointed an interim chief compliance officer in line with the new rules and it would share the details with the IT ministry soon. As per the rules, each significant social media intermediary is required to appoint a chief compliance officer, a nodal contact person for 24×7 coordination with law enforcement agencies, and a resident grievance officer. All three should be resident Indians.

    “These rules are only about setting out the procedures that need to be followed by the intermediaries if they want to continue to get the protection of safe harbour under section 79. The principle of intermediaries is that ordinarily, you will be not liable to whatever content you carry because it is presumed the platforms do not know what they are carrying. Therefore, the platforms will get the benefit of the doubt. But the benefit of the doubt will only extend to the situation where you are told this is wrong and you need to take it down,” TMT Law Practice managing partner Abhishek Malhotra explained.

    Twitter has already been named in an FIR concerning an incident in Ghaziabad’s Loni. “There is no communal angle to the incident in Loni where a man was thrashed and his beard was chopped off. The following entities — The Wire, Rana Ayyub, Mohammad Zubair, Dr Shama Mohammed, Saba Naqvi, Maskoor Usmani, Slaman Nizami — without checking the fact, started giving communal colour to the incident on Twitter and suddenly they started spreading messages to disrupt the peace and bring differences between the religious communities,” the Ghaziabad Police said in the FIR.

    India is one of the top five markets for Twitter. There are apprehensions that Twitter can be even banned if this tussle continues. The platform recently faced the heat in Nigeria.

    “Twitter admittedly is yet to comply with IT Rules, 2021 and as the law stands as on date, the government may decide to revoke its ‘intermediary’ status thereby taking away the immunity enjoyed by it against the content published on the platform by its millions of users,” partner at Bharucha & Partners Kaushik Moitra said.

    However, any action initiated by the Government must be tested in the freedom of speech and expression enshrined in the Constitution of India, he noted further.