Centre to prepare fresh draft broadcasting services bill after consultations

The draft Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill, circulated by the government among a few stakeholders, drew criticism from media bodies such as DigiPub and the Editors Guild of India which claimed that digital media organisations and civil society associations were not consulted on the move.

New Delhi: A fresh draft of the Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill will be released after detailed consultations, the Modi government said on Monday night, as criticism mounted over an improvised draft that was kept out of public domain suggested treating online content creators as OTT or digital broadcasters if they dealt with current affairs.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting had earlier placed a draft in public domain on November 10 last year along with the explanatory notes for comments of the stakeholders and the general public.

A fresh draft will be published after detailed consultations, it said on 'X'.

Sources said the ministry had recently updated the November 10 draft and circulated among some stakeholders, which was not made public.

Last week, the DigiPub News India Foundation, an organisation representing more than 90 digital news publishers, and the Editors Guild of India alleged the Ministry held closed-door consultations with select stakeholders and larger discussions with digital media organisations and associations of civil society have not taken place.

The improvised draft was learnt to have contained provisions that could identify online content creators, which covers independent journalists on YouTube and Instagram to newsletter writers as OTT broadcasters or digital news broadcasters. This provision had attracted criticism from several quarters.

This would have brought them under the ambit of the ministry’s Content and Advertisement Code. It also proposed to make it mandatory for online content creators to appoint a grievance redressal officer and a content evaluation committee once they crossed a certain number of subscribers.

The Delhi Union of Journalists (DUJ) said these provisions would have an impact on individuals who provide news, current affairs and analysis online on platforms like YouTube and WhatsApp.

The requirement of a content evaluation committee and affiliation with a Self Regulation Network will be costly, lead to delays and throw many individual and small content developers out of the race, it had said.