Broadcasting Bill worries INS chief

MUMBAI, JAN 16: President of the Indian Newspaper Society INS Mammen Mathew has welcomed the move of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to hold broad base consultations with a view to reviewing the draft of the Broadcasting Bill 1997.

In a statement issued, Mathew express serious reservations regarding the cross-media restrictions imposed in clause 12 chapter IV whereby no newspaper can have more than 20 per cent interest or control in a broadcasting company. The bill proposes restrictions on a broadcasting company having interest in or control over a newspaper. quot;Cross-media restrictions are essentially Western concepts that have no relevance to the present Indian scenario. In fact, there is considerable fragmentation of newspaper ownership in each of the Indian cities and regions. Newspapers are a declining industry as they are losing audience and advertising shares steadily to the broadcasting and new media industries,quot; the INS president remarked.

Mathew felt that countries which enacteddraconian laws on cross media restrictions are dismantling them as the electronic revolution, aided by digitalisation and globalisation, has rendered redundant the premises on which such regulations were founded.

He expressed the view that existing MRTP laws are sufficient to ensure that media markets observe competition.