Broadcasters divided on having a big brother

It's a million-dollar poser. Does the Indian broadcaster require a regulator to mind his business? With the BJP-led NDA Government in power,...

It’s a million-dollar poser. Does the Indian broadcaster require a regulator to mind his business? With the BJP-led NDA Government in power, it is natural to assume that the poser would have come from the Information and Broadcasting Ministry dying to play teacher-teacher.

But I&B Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad insisted he had come for a ‘‘listening brief’’ today from the bigwigs of Indian broadcasting industry — all gathered to mull over the need for an independent regulator. It was another matter that they ended up giving him the perfect excuse for a government-run regulator. In fact, the broadcasters divided amongst themselves even before they could unite. Everyone gathered was pitted against the other on expected lines: swadeshi vs videshi broadcaster, cable operator vs broadcaster and finally, the Government acting as principal.

A ringside view:

The venue/subject: The second in the FICCI series of a debate on the need for a broadcast regulator in India.

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The participants: FICCI, editor-in-chief, India Today, Aroon Purie, Discovery channel India head Deepak Shourie, Turner’s Anshuman Mishra, Aaj Tak’s Krishnan, Reliance Entertainment chairman Amit Khanna, cable operators, the I&B minister, I&B secretary Pawan Chopra and scores of other mediamen.

The provocation: Sahara channel’s Mahesh Prasad who, after making a stirring speech for the need for a regulator to regulate ‘‘obscene’’ content, could not help add the bit about broadcasters (read foreign), choosing to operate in India but taking revenues out of the country without paying taxes.

That was enough for his neighbour Deepak Shourie to cry foul. Broadcasters like him and Turner were by definition foreign and Prasad was alluding to them. A direct intervention by the minister quietened him.

Much before they could speak, the minister had set the ground for a regulator by declaring though he was against government intervention, calls for self-regulation (content of ads!) had gone unheeded. Back to the question: Is it possible to set up an independent regulator for a divided house? At the end of three hours, solutions were hard to come by.

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