Another Prasar Bharti?

Did someone say we have a new Prime Minister? Sometimes, it's hard to tell. The more things change, the more they remain the same. The Broa...

Did someone say we have a new Prime Minister? Sometimes, it8217;s hard to tell. The more things change, the more they remain the same. The Broadcasting Bill was on the agenda of the Cabinet, it came up for discussion and was passed. Now, it will be introduced in Parliament, where it will probably be referred to either a Select or a Standing Committee. We will not hear of it for another year, until suddenly one day, our MPs decide that the nation cannot do without it. In the meantime, several proposals, some involving considerable monetary benefit to the State itself, will hang fire.

Doordarshan8217;s Channel 3 will still find itself unable to offer equity to potential foreign investors interested in investing in hardware, Direct-To-Home DTH television will still be a dirty acronym and the still-struggling television industry will continue to be at the mercy of inflexible DD rates and uninterested advertisers.

This time again the government has promised us a public debate. The last time they did so, it appeared it was limited to a solitary briefing in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry8217;s Consultative Committee. Apparently, the MPs were no wiser. Neither was the public. In the absence of any public debate on the Bill, private broadcasters of all persuasions have had a field day. Some have lobbied with the Information and Broadcasting Minister, who as yet remains C. M. Ibrahim, others have briefed his rivals. But the government has relied on bluster about the State8217;s prerogative to decide public policy, rather than capture the initiative in what is actually a long-awaited and much-needed regulatory framework. Worse, it has cited a two-year-old Ram Vilas Paswan sub-committee report on foreign media which does not even mention the State8217;s favourite bugbear, DTH, and DD8217;s new fashion statement, Multi-Modal Distribution System MMDS, as evidence of its honest intentions.

This is not to suspect bureaucratic integrity or political sagacity. But surely the public has a right to be consulted on what is beamed from an object that sits right in their living rooms and sometimes, also in the bedroom. The last time the government tried to regulate free-to-air television, through an ordinance and then the Cable Networks Regulation Act, 1996, implementation proved to be a non-starter. It was left to lower-level courts and the ubiquitous Censor Board to determine what we could/should see. At least now, let the government concentrate less on the extent of foreign equity and multiplicity of licences and more on establishing mechanisms to redress viewers8217; grievances. It is true the government does not exist to satisfy private interests, but there is no need for it to stifle private initiative either. Conspiracy theories are easy to hatch but open democracies are difficult to sustain. A Bill that invites benami cross-media holdings and covert politicking by interested parties will help no one. Least of all, the viewer politician, please read voter.