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Tag: Content Code

  • OTT platforms receive stringent warning over content compliance

    OTT platforms receive stringent warning over content compliance

    MUMBAI: India’s ministry of  information and broadcasting has issued a comprehensive advisory to over-the-top (OTT) streaming platforms following mounting complaints about inappropriate content from members of parliament, statutory organisations and public grievances.

    The ministry has underscored that streaming platforms must rigorously comply with the Code of Ethics delineated in the Information Technology Rules of 2021. These regulations mandate precise age-appropriate content classification and robust access controls to prevent children from accessing adult-rated material.

    In a significant development, self-regulatory bodies overseeing these platforms have been explicitly instructed to take proactive measures against violations. The advisory drew attention to several stringent laws, including the Indecent Representation of Women Act, the newly enacted Bhartiya Nyay Sanhita 2023, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, and the Information Technology Act, which collectively make the publication of obscene or pornographic content a punishable offence.

    The directive particularly emphasised the implementation of a more rigorous age-based content classification system and reminded platforms of the three-tier grievance redressal mechanism established under the IT Rules. This mechanism has been designed to address and resolve complaints related to content violations effectively.

    The ministry’s intervention comes at a time when there is increasing public discourse about the alleged proliferation of objectionable content across streaming platforms and social media. The move signals a tightening of regulatory oversight in India’s rapidly expanding digital entertainment sector.

    The advisory serves as a stark reminder to OTT platforms that they must exercise heightened discretion and due diligence while publishing content, ensuring it aligns with both legal requirements and ethical standards prescribed under Indian law.

  • TV content: Madras HC seeks Centre’s clarification on regulatory mechanism

    TV content: Madras HC seeks Centre’s clarification on regulatory mechanism

    NEW DELHI: Joining issues with a petition presently being heard by the Supreme Court on a similar matter, the Madras High Court yesterday directed the federal government to clarify on the existing regulatory setup governing contents aired by television channels in India.

    The first bench comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M Sunder gave this direction to assistant solicitor general Su Srinivasan, who appeared for the central government, during the hearing of a public interest litigation (PIL) to stop telecast of Tamil reality show ‘Bigg Boss’, hosted by actor Kamal Haasan on Vijay TV, part of Star India, according to a report filed by PTI from Chennai.

    The matter has been posted for further hearing on August 18, 2017.

    Earlier, senior counsel P S Raman, who appeared on behalf of the actor and anchor of the TV show, submitted that there were two bodies to regulate the channels. One was the Broadcasting Content Complaints Council (BCCC), a self-regulatory body headed by a retired Supreme Court judge and the other was ministry of information and broadcasting (MIB), the PTI report quoted Raman as telling the local high court.

    BCCC is a self-regulatory body set up by the Indian Broadcasting Foundation, an industry organisation that has a large number of TV channels as its members. Though there’s no formal content regulatory body in India on the lines of American FCC or the UK’s Ofcom or Singapore’s MDA, IBF’s self regulatory body takes up complaints relating to TV content. Separately, the content code, part of India’s Cable TV Act (enforced by MIB) outlines broad guidelines for TV content.

    The PTI report stated that petitioner Saravanan has alleged that in the reality show Haasan played with emotions and behaviour of female contestants, which he termed vulgar and obscene. He further submitted that to protect Tamil culture and tradition and in the interest and welfare of the general public, the telecast of the show must be stalled immediately.

    “The dress code and behaviour of female contestants on the show are very vulgar and obscene making my family members and me uncomfortable in watching the programme. Also, the reference to ‘cheri’ (slum) behavior, made by a participant to describe the behaviour of another contestant, greatly hurt downtrodden people,” the petitioner said.

    Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is hearing a similar case and has enquired from the central government whether it has a proper mechanism in place to regulate TV content.

    Outgoing film certification (CBFC) chief Pahlaj Nihalani, dubbed nationalist and ultra-conservative by a section of content producers and audience alike, in a media interview had urged the government to extend CBFC’s jurisdiction to oversee television shows too.

    ALSO READ:

    Govt formalising TV & radio complaints’ redressal mechanism

    SC to MIB: Get mechanism to deal with complaints on TV, radio shows

    Awarded adman Prasoon Joshi is new CBFC chief, Pahlaj Nihalani exits

  • Govt warning to TV channels on b’cast norms breach

    Govt warning to TV channels on b’cast norms breach

    NEW DELHI: Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has issued warning to three different television channels over content that an inter-ministerial committee, appointed by it, felt was not as per broadcasting norms and a breach of content code, a PTI report stated.

    In the first case, a television channel was issued a warning in an order dated 29 November, after it showed disturbing visuals of incidents of suicide in Kerala without adequately morphing them, as recorded in the ministry order.

    In another instance, a warning was issued in an order dated 29 November to another channel which too allegedly did not adequately blur the visuals of a murder victim lying in a pool of blood.

    Another channel was also issued a warning by the ministry over revealing the identity of a victim of sexual abuse and other content which did not confirm to the norms.

    A couple of months back, as reported by Indiantelevision.com, MIB had issued a notice to NDTV channel suspending its telecast over alleged breach of content code relating to national security issues. The order was subsequently suspended owing to public and media pressure and criticism that the government was resorting to censorship of news in the garb of broadcasting norms breaches.

  • Govt warning to TV channels on b’cast norms breach

    Govt warning to TV channels on b’cast norms breach

    NEW DELHI: Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has issued warning to three different television channels over content that an inter-ministerial committee, appointed by it, felt was not as per broadcasting norms and a breach of content code, a PTI report stated.

    In the first case, a television channel was issued a warning in an order dated 29 November, after it showed disturbing visuals of incidents of suicide in Kerala without adequately morphing them, as recorded in the ministry order.

    In another instance, a warning was issued in an order dated 29 November to another channel which too allegedly did not adequately blur the visuals of a murder victim lying in a pool of blood.

    Another channel was also issued a warning by the ministry over revealing the identity of a victim of sexual abuse and other content which did not confirm to the norms.

    A couple of months back, as reported by Indiantelevision.com, MIB had issued a notice to NDTV channel suspending its telecast over alleged breach of content code relating to national security issues. The order was subsequently suspended owing to public and media pressure and criticism that the government was resorting to censorship of news in the garb of broadcasting norms breaches.

  • Content Code: Govt to meet broadcasters next week

    Content Code: Govt to meet broadcasters next week

    NEW DELHI: The much delayed Content Code may get a push with the. government slated to hold a meeting with private broadcasters on this next week.

    “I am holding a meeting next week and then we will decide,” information and broadcasting minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi said on the sidelines of a book release function.

    Dasmunsi said the government needed to study the proposal by the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) about formation of the ‘News Broadcasting Standards (Disputes Redressal) Authority’ to enforce NBA’s code of ethics and broadcasting standards with effect from 2 October. He refused to make any comment on the proposal aimed at self-regulation.

    Answering a question, Dasmunsi said the recommendations of Trai on self-regulation by television channels of TV viewership ratings were being studied by the government. However, he said ‘no’ when a mediaperson sought to know whether regulation of content would be given to Trai.

    The minister was speaking to the media on the sidelines of a function at which he released two books on revolutionaries and freedom fighters – Khudiram Bose: Revolutionary Extraordinaire (English) written by Dr. Hitendra Patel And Ajeya Krantikari: Rajguru (Hindi) by Anil Verma – which have been published by the Publications Division of the ministry.

    Answering another question after the function, Dasmunsi also turned down any proposal to permit private FM channels to broadcast news bulletins, despite a recommendation to that effect by Trai and Ficci.

    Meanwhile, he said in reply to a question that he would talk to Jammu and Kashmir Governor N N Vohra about the reported attack by Jammu police on two photojournalists of Amar Ujala and JK Channel last night while they were covering the police brutality on Amarnath Sangarsh Samiti activists who were sitting on a dharna along with the body of Kuldeep Dogra who committed suicide yesterday. He said the ministry would make its own inquiry into the incident.

    Apart from the minister, others present included I & B Secretary Sushma Singh, Debasis Roy (grand nephew of Khudiram Bose) and Satyasheel Rajguru (nephew of Rajguru).

    Publications Division Director Veena Jain said that the recently-launched website of Employment News published by the Division was getting around 300,000 hits everyday. In addition, the popular children’s journal ‘Bal Bharati’ had the largest circulation among children’s journal category and the monthly magazine ‘Yojana’ is the only journal to be published in India in 13 languages.

  • MIB to meet NBA soon on Content Code

    MIB to meet NBA soon on Content Code

    NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting will soon call the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) for a meeting on the issue of the Code of Content as well as the redressal mechanism. The NBA had submitted these two documents to the Delhi High Court.

    Sources said that the NBA had submitted the documents to the court on the last date of hearing on 26 March.

    The Court had earlier asked the MIB to hold discussions with the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) and the Indian Media Group (IMG) regarding the issue of content code, acting on the basis of a writ filed by a person aggrieved by a sting operation.

    The court, incidentally, had not named NBA among those to be consulted before the MIB stated its position on the Content Code. The ministry had completed the consultations, leaving the NBA out.

    Now the ministry will meet the NBA also, as the Association’s documents is part of the court proceedings, sources said.

    Meanwhile, the responses of the IBF and IMG had already been taken before the MIB filed the document with the court. Only NBA will be consulted in this latest round, sources said.

  • Content Code: MIB places self-regulation guidelines before Court

    Content Code: MIB places self-regulation guidelines before Court

    NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting today placed before the Delhi High Court a Self Regulatory Guidelines for the Broadcasting Sector (2008) that proposes a two-tier regulatory set-up to be run entirely by broadcasters, with the key being adherence to the Certification Rules of the Cable Television Network (Regulation) Act, 1995.

    The contentious issue of Content Auditor has been dealt with extensively in the Guidelines, giving the industry the powers they wanted, by removing the clause in the earlier Code that said that the Auditors would have to report issues of non-compliance to the government.

    Now, the Auditors would report violations to the Chief Editor and it would be his responsibility finally on what goes on air.

    The Guideline says that only cases in which the Broadcast Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) would take action – suo moto or on receiving a complaint – would be violations of the Certification Rules that have repercussions on the security or integrity of the country or contravene restrictions under the Theme 6 (Regulation & Community) or Theme 9 (General Restrictions) of the Certification Rules.

    Also, segment-wise Broadcast Consumer Complaint Committees would have to be set up, which would include separate committees for MSOs (multi-system operators), LCOs (local cable operators), the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), News Broadcasters Association (NBA), Association for Radio Organisations of India, Community Radio Forum and the Prasar Bharati.

    The BCCCs would have wide-ranging powers, including directions to channels not to telecast programmes or advertisement, “pending discussion”; to edit the advertisement or programme, and order any punitive action “in accordance with the constitution of the BCCC of the relevant segments of the industry”.

    While the First Tier would ensure self-regulation at the BSP level, the Second Tier would be the domain of the industry as a whole.The BCCCs would play their role there, again a new concept ushered in by the Guidelines.

    “At both the tiers, it will be the industry that would regulate itself, which was their demand and so what more can one ask for?” said an MIB official, without wanting to be identified.

    A copy of the Guidelines is exclusively with indiantelevision.com.

    The first tier would be at the Broadcast Service Provider (BSP) level, where each such BSP would have to have its “own internal mechanism to comply with the Rules, for which it may appoint one or more Content Auditor of requisite qualification and experience”.

    Each channel would have to provide details of its Content Auditor/s on its website and channel for information of the public, and the information would have to be notified to the MIB.

    It says: “For the purpose of ensuring compliance, each BSP may develop its own internal guidelines and procedures. However, each BSP shall consult its Content Auditor/s for assigning appropriate categorisation as per the Rules in respect of each programme / advertisement.

    “The Chief Editor of the channel, by whatever designation he is known in the channel shall be responsible for the final decision to accept or modify the guidance given by the Content Auditor”, and shall be “finally responsible for self-regulation and ensure compliance with the Rules”.

    Another new aspect in the Guidelines is to deal with Live and interactive programmes.

    In these, the government felt, that participants’ words or ideas or gestures cannot be edited out, so the Chief Editor would have to satisfy himself that adequate briefing have been given to the participants about the certification norms and indemnify the BSP against any deliberate violations by them.

    An important new aspect that had been a demand of the industry, especially the news channels, has been taken care of, wherein the Guidelines says that while the Content Auditor would bring to the notice of the Chief Editor any violation of the Rules, “The ultimate decision of such a matter shall be the responsibility of the Chief Editor.”

    The second tier would be at the Industry Level, at which the “Central Government or the Broadcast Regulatory Authority of India would appoint industry-segment level organisations to set up their respective Broadcast Consumers Complaint Committees, who would have to deal with and respond to complaints within specific time limits.”

    It is here that the MSOs and LCOs have been empowered for the first time to set up their own BCCCs to deal with programme content complaints from subscribers.

    The list of other industry-segments that would have to set up their own BCCCs include the IBF, NBA, Association of Radio Operators of India, Community Radio Forum and Prasar Bharati.

    The Introduction to the Guidelines says: “These Guidelines set out principles… and ethical practices which shall guide the BSPs on offering programming services…” and also says that “These Guidelines have been drafted to introduce greater specificity …and minimse scope for subjective decision by the regulatory authorities or the BSPs.”

    Since the Guidelines are self-regulatory, which has been a consistent industry demand, the onus, the government says, would be on the BSP when forming a view on the acceptability of any programme.

    The industry demand for watershed timing has been accepted and made progressive, from 8 pm onwards, under the assumption that from that time of the day “parents are expected to share the responsibility of what their children are permitted to watch on TV”.

  • Govt case for administered content code gains ground

    Govt case for administered content code gains ground

    Big Brother will soon not just be watching but acting, and news broadcasters will have nowhere to hide because they will not have much of a case to defend. That is a hard truth that otherwise responsible heads of news networks accede to in private but refuse to acknowledge in public.

    The first practical signs of that came on 4 February. The spark: coverage of the political skirmishes over ‘outsiders crowding out locals’ in Mumbai city.

    Invoking for the first time the provisions of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995, the Mumbai Police reportedly ordered transmission of two news channels – Sahara Mumbai and India TV – be stopped “for repeatedly telecasting clippings of tension between workers of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) and Samajwadi Party (SP)”. Cable operators were directed to stop transmission of the two channels for 24 hours from the time they received a copy of the order.

    Joint commissioner of police (law and order) KL Prasad was quoted in an Indian Express report as saying, “We have issued an order under Section 19 of the Act, which specifically states that ‘half truths’ cannot be spread.”

    The ‘half truth’, Prasad said, was in the manner in which the channels tried to depict through pictures, videos and words that ‘Mumbai is tense’. “A situation controlled in 20 minutes was made to look as if it was still happening,” Prasad pointed out.

    Sahara Mumbai head Rajeev Bajaj’s reaction was on expected lines: “If an order has been passed, we will fight it out in court.”

    The 4th February action by the authorities becomes even more relevant if we keep in mind the fact that the I&B ministry is already majorly upset with the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) for having failed to meet their own stated deadline of 31 January for submitting a Content Code.

    “They have sent us nothing, despite the fact that they themselves had set the deadline and we think they are not interested,” senior I&B officials complained.

    The government is worried about the excessive repetitions of shots of violence – whether against women, or communal in nature and says, “This is really dangerous and the editors must now take a call on this.”

    Incidentally, the ministry is also gearing up to meet a Delhi High Court deadline on sitting down with the Indian Newspaper Society, the Indian Media Group and the Indian Broadcasting Foundation to thrash out depiction of violence and obscenity in the media.

    Hearing a writ petition requesting the court to pass an order to tell the ministry to take action on such depictions, the court had given an interim order on 14 December, for the organisations and the ministry to thrash out issues and report to the court within 10 weeks.

    The government feels that the NBA is wasting time and that the ministry would have to soon come out with its Code.

    So just what is it that forces otherwise responsible news channel heads to do what is so patently against all norms of even the most basic of journalistic practices?

    A one line answer could of course be, ‘The low road is the easy road to ratings riches’. An already cluttered market getting ever more crowded by the day and with no regulation to govern conduct, it’s easy to see why most channels are taking this route.

    There is another factor at work here that is worth a mention. Which is that the tabloid news channel proposition is a viable entry strategy for those without the deep pockets that are required for launching an entertainment channel. So in essence these channels are not too far removed from entertainment channels, with a whole load of extremely low cost fictional content to offer as well in addition to the regular fare that is principally infotainment rather than news.

    There is an added intrinsic logic that we believe is driving this obsession with the bizarre and the salacious as far as the ‘tabloidised’ Hindi news channels are concerned. It might well be that these channels are filling a real and existing need gap for the Hindi male viewer looking for entertainment.

    After all, where does the Hindi heartland male viewer get his daily dose of TV entertainment if we accept that Hindi GECs are targeted mainly at women? Where else but Hindi news channels – which might explain why the preponderance of sex, crime, and the plain bizarre is working for Hindi news channels.

    Coming back to where all this started, the present situation is clearly becoming more and more untenable. Something has to give. The sad part of this is that it will likely be the government giving a bull in a China shop solution that will be to the detriment of all news broadcasters; and more importantly, the public at large.

  • Deadline passes, still no Content Code; govt says editors must take a call

    Deadline passes, still no Content Code; govt says editors must take a call

    NEW DELHI: The deadline has passed. Now the information & broadcasting ministry is seriously upset that the News Broadcasters Association has not sent them any communiqué – let alone the Content Code they had promised to give – and say that the editors will have to take a call, especially about excessive repetition of shots of violence.

    “NBA had themselves said they would give their draft by 31 January, and though there is nothing sacrosanct about that date, we could wait for a day or two,” a ministry official said.

    The official also pointed out that repetition of violent and obscene shots is a dangerous thing, as they make the less educated audience – the vast majority – think that that is the reality. “The editor will have to take a call on that, this cannot be allowed,” he added.

    NBA secretary general and spokesperson Annie Joseph could not be contacted despite several calls on her mobile, and another senior member o NBA committee declined to comment, saying that could come from only Joseph.

    However, industry sources said that the draft is still being discussed and the attempt is to make it inclusive and representative across the country, and hence, it would take a longer time, as this could not be rushed through.

    Officials also informed that they are gearing to meet a Delhi High Court deadline on informing the court about the outcome of meetings with the Indian Newspaper Society, Indian Broadcasting Foundation and the Indian Media Group on issues of violence and obscenity.

    The court has specifically named these three organisations and not included the NBA in its list of organisations to be consulted, the official stated.

    A writ petition filed by an individual asking the court to issue an order to the government to implement the content code. On 14 December, the court passed an interim order, asking the organisations and the government to thrash out the issues and report to it within 10 weeks, and that process is on, the official said.

    Senior officials said, “NBA is not interested in filing their draft Content Code, and though nothing concrete has been decided as the next course of action, the government will soon decide what to do.”

    The government has only two options: drop the entire issue, or take up their own content code and possibly revise certain segments that had been found to be repugnant by NBA, and issue the code.

    Dropping the content code altogether is not a plausible course of action for even if the government wanted to, the judiciary has clearly indicated in many cases that it is not happy with the content on TV news channels.

  • I&B mulls sending reminder to NBA over Content Code

    NEW DELHI: Upset over News Broadcasters Association’s (NBA) silence on the Content Code almost a month after sending a letter, the Information and Broadcasting ministry (I&B) is now planning to send a reminder.

    Meanwhile, the government-drafted Code remains in place till a regulator comes up.

    “We have no word from them and it may be they have not taken this seriously,” an official told Indiantelevision.com, despite the fact that during a meeting with the minister for Information and Broadcasting, journalists had said they would draft their own Code and send it to the government.

    “We are considering sending a letter to remind them on this soon,” the official said, and added that the government was looking at getting the Broadcast Bill out as soon as possible.

    However, though the Bill was termed as a priority, the official was unable to give a definite deadline for it to be in place. The Bill has to be passed early, the official said, as that would be the only route of setting up the regulator.

    It may be recalled that while most broadcasters are agreeable to having a regulation, they had vehemently fought the idea of a government-drafted Code of Content, terming that as infringement of free speech.

    In the context of the Bill, when asked whether the ministry officials had interacted with the chairperson of Ofcom, the British media regulatory body, the official said they had “a lot of interaction.”

    So, is the Indian ministry taking points from the Ofcom system?

    “They have an interesting system of setting up the Commission, which is basically that the old body of the Commission gets the new body in and this gives them autonomy. We are looking at this and studying it, and may be some parts could be considered,” added the official.

    The system of setting regulatory bodies and Commission is different from that in British media affairs, the official said, and this merits study.

    However, the ministry could not give a deadline of getting the Bill on the house of the Parliament, saying that there is need for more guidance. That guidance would come from within the ministry itself “as we are pretty much aware of who has to say what on the issue”.

    Meanwhile, the Code of Content drafted by the government has not been scrapped and will be there as a referral point as and when the regulator is set up. The government might scrap some provisions obnoxious to the industry and put it for more healthy debate, the official said.