Facing criticism, Govt withdraws new draft of broadcast Bill

At least three sources, including a senior government official and two industry executives, confirmed to The Indian Express that the ministry has now asked the stakeholders to return the draft Bill. The stakeholders received a call from the ministry to return their copies of the draft Bill, said sources.

The ministry is expected to go back to the drawing board and work on a new proposal, said sources.

The ministry did not respond to requests for a comment on the issue. But, in a statement posted on X at night, the ministry referred to an earlier draft Bill placed in public domain in November last year, and said it “is holding a series of consultations with the stakeholders” and is offering them “further additional time” till October 15 to issue their comments. “A fresh draft will be published after detailed consultations,” it said.

The ministry’s statement, however, did not mention the new draft Bill which was shared with a few stakeholders last month, in a watermarked format to prevent any leak, and the fact that it has asked them to return these copies.

The statement has confused stakeholders, especially those who were not part of the group with which the government shared the 2024 version of the draft Bill. “Are we supposed to send our comments on the November 2023 version of the now withdrawn draft, because a copy was never formally shared with us,” said a person from the industry, requesting anonymity.

The Bill, which sought to replace the 1995 Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, deals with television broadcasting. In November last year, the ministry had invited comments on a draft Bill that consolidated the legal framework for the broadcasting sector and extended it to OTT content and digital news and current affairs as well.

However, the new draft Bill, shared privately with some stakeholders last month, significantly altered the focus of the 2023 draft Bill.

The new draft Bill came under intense criticism after it expanded its remit from OTT content and digital news to include social media accounts and online video creators, sought to define a “digital news broadcaster” in sweeping terms to include independent content creators, and proposed prior registration with the government.

There was pushback from independent content creators publicly, and big tech companies privately, over fears of government overreach.

The Indian Express has learnt that a major difference of opinion emerged within the bureaucracy of the ministry on whether the Bill should apply to non-news online content creators. As per the draft Bill, such creators would have fallen under the category of OTT broadcasters. This is one of the reasons why the government wants to rework the contours of the Bill, said sources.

The latest draft sought to define “digital news broadcasters” to include “publisher of news and current affairs content”, which means any person who broadcasts news and current affairs programmes through an online paper, news portal, website, social media intermediary, or other similar medium as part of a systematic business, professional or commercial activity but excluding replica e-papers.

This definition could include users on YouTube, Instagram, and even X, who generate advertising revenue through paid subscriptions or monetise their social media accounts through affiliate activities.

It allowed the government to specify a threshold for the number of subscribers or viewers for OTT broadcasters, who would then have to intimate it of their existence and operations and also adhere to a programme code and an advertisement code.

These online content creators would have to set up a content evaluation committee (CEC), and “strive to make” the committee diverse by including individuals with knowledge of different social groups, women, child welfare, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and minorities. The names of people in their CEC would have to be shared with the government.

Creators would be allowed to only run programmes which are certified by the CEC. However, such certification would not be required for programmes that are already certified for public viewing in India by a statutory body, educational programmes, news and current affairs programmes, live events, animation for children, and other programmes that the government may designate.

The Bill also sought to validate the “Code of Ethics” prescribed under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, which has been stayed by the Bombay High Court and the Madras High Court.

Earlier, a senior government official had said a key reason behind the significant expansion of scope in the current draft Bill, as compared to the version that was released for public consultation in November 2023, was the “role a number of independent content creators played in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls”.