New Delhi: A new draft of the broadcasting bill will label social media participants who routinely upload videos to social media, make podcasts or write about current affairs online ‘digital news broadcasters’, a report on Hindustan Times says.
The second draft of the Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill, 2024, that the paper has reviewed takes off from the first version released on November 2023, in which the government had laid out plans to combine all regulation for broadcasters under a single law.
“From the beginning, it has been dogged by concerns around whether or not news content creators online, who are not associated with legacy media or registered digital media, can attract obligations imposed on streaming platforms (‘OTT broadcasting services’),” the report notes.
The current version appears to address these concerns with the clubbing of all news producers into one, with this new category of ‘digital news broadcasters’
The report says that the government has stressed in this version that a ‘professional’ is anyone engaged in an occupation or vocation and a ‘systematic activity’ is ‘any structured or organised activity that involves an element of planning, method, continuity or persistence.’
Under the new version, ‘news and current affairs programmes’ will also include text, along with audio, visual or audio-visual content, sign, signals, writing, images which are “transmitted directly or using a broadcasting network”, the report says.
Now, text is also part of the definitions of programme and broadcasting.
The bill will go through the Union Cabinet before it is tabled in Parliament.
Its earlier iteration had been contentious with the Network of Women in Media, India (NWMI) warning that it would arm the Union government with disproportionate power to regulate India’s news and entertainment industries, and adding that it could “irreparably damage free press, free speech and creative freedom” in the country.
The new changes come after a Lok Sabha election which were labelled India’s first “YouTube elections” – in reference to the fact that in an atmosphere where India’s mainstream media was largely repeating the government line, news outlets helmed by small teams or individuals, functioning out of YouTube, went some way in consistent reporting and shaping public opinion.
The broadcasting bill also has changes relevant to online advertising and new obligations for intermediaries – both of which come under guidelines the government may prescribe with powers given to it under the new Bill – and OTT broadcasting services. The latter now includes not just platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, but also social media content creators. The last group can also involve journalists.
