News Broadcasters and Digital Association to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the News Broadcasters and Digital Association (NBDA) will meet tomorrow to address a number of significant broadcasting-related matters, such as the draft Broadcast Bill and the IT Rules 2021. The senior brass of the NBDA, including NDTV whole-time director Sanjay Pugalia, TV18 Broadcast MD Rahul Joshi, vice chairperson Kalli Purie of TV Today Network, and chairman of India TV Rajat Sharma, will be present at the meeting.

The NBDA has not distributed a formal agenda for the meeting, according to sources. One of the individuals said, "NBDA officials have been told to be on standby for the meeting."

In February, the NBDA highlighted serious concerns about the draft Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill 2023. The first draft of the law was circulated in November 2023, and the second draft was distributed to selected stakeholders in July 2024. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) had recently requested that stakeholders return physical copies of the draft bill.

The ministry also announced that it will conduct additional consultations with stakeholders before producing a new draft. The media business has reacted strongly to the broadcast bill's inclusion of OTT and digital news. The second draft went a step further and treated social media users who exceeded a particular level, which was to be announced later, as OTT broadcasting service operators or digital news broadcasters.

In its recommendations to the MIB, the NBDA stated that the broadcast bill grants government officials disproportionate power. It further claimed that certain of the definitions and regulations are unclear and imprecise. The NBDA had also expressed concerns about the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, which empowered government agencies to remove content that it deemed fraudulent.

Another key subject that is scheduled to be discussed is the Department of Telecom's (DoT) plans to release the 3700-4200 MHz frequency band to telecom operators for the deployment of 5G/6G services. Last year, the NBDA wrote to the DoT, claiming that transferring broadcasters from the present frequency spectrum of 3700 to 4200 MHz to 4000 to 4200 MHz would be the death knell for the broadcasting business.

The NBDA also stated that reducing bandwidth on the C-band spectrum will result in a 60% reduction in capacity across all satellites, requiring more than 40 transponders to move to higher frequencies, causing serious and irreversible disruptions in the broadcasting industry. The NBDA is made up of 28 top news and current affairs broadcasters who operate 73 channels and 54 digital news outlets.