New Delhi: The ministry of knowledge and broadcasting (MIB) instructed the Rajya Sabha on Friday that the federal government is guided by “a differentiated strategy” for content material regulation on over-the-top (OTT) platforms similar to Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, and cable TV networks.
Minister of state for info and broadcasting, L Murugan, in a written response to Trinamool Congress’s (TMC) Dola Sen, mentioned that it is because content material on OTT platforms is “consumed on-demand,” whereas content material on cable TV networks is distributed “in a linear method.”
Friday’s response got here amid MIB’s makes an attempt to draft a brand new regulation to manage all broadcasters, together with on-line streaming platforms and, arguably, all user-generated content material on-line.
The most recent model of the Broadcasting Providers (Regulation) Invoice, or BSRB, can classify all on-line content material creators—from impartial journalists on YouTube and Instagram to “thought leaders” on LinkedIn to e-newsletter writers who write about crocheting—as both OTT broadcasters or as digital information broadcasters, because the case could also be.
The brand new model of the invoice, which has been watermarked to hint leaks and was given to pick out stakeholders between July 24 and July 25, has drawn important issues and criticism about its opaque session course of and in regards to the authorities’s makes an attempt to manage on-line media, particularly impartial journalists on YouTube.
To make sure, each the 2023 and 2024 variations of the BSRB permit the central authorities to prescribe completely different programme and promoting codes for OTT broadcasters and linear broadcasters. In at the least three conferences that the MIB held with business stakeholders between Could 29 and July 9, ministry officers assured the business that the federal government would differentiate between the programme code for conventional broadcasters (similar to Sony, Star, and Zee) and on-line streaming providers, HT had reported on July 12. When a prime Airtel official had argued that might result in regulatory arbitrage between broadcasters and streaming platforms, I&B secretary Sanjay Jaju rejected it.
In response to Sen’s query, Murugan, citing the annual experiences of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), mentioned that the variety of cable TV subscribers had declined from 103 million in March 2020 to 64 million in March 2023, excluding DTH and free dish subscribers. “The decline could also be partly attributable to the appearance of Over-the-Prime platforms,” he mentioned.
