The Hindu : Front Page : Content code to be incorporated soon into Broadcasting Bill

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 27, 2007
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Content code to be incorporated soon into Broadcasting Bill

Staff Correspondent

This legislation will be modern and the media industry has nothing to worry about: Dasmunsi

— PHOTO: PTI

Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi having a word with actor Kareena Kapoor on the opening day of the "FICCI Frames 2007," the two-day convention on the business of entertainment in Mumbai on Monday. Director-cum-producer Yash Chopra is third from right. FICCI president Habib Khorakiwala is also seen.

MUMBAI: The Government is in the process of fine-tuning the certification of films and is developing a content code, which will be incorporated in the Broadcasting Regulation Bill to be announced soon.

Inaugurating the three-day FICCI-FRAMES 2007 on the media and entertainment industry, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi said, "this legislation will be modern and the media industry has nothing to worry about."

The Minister said that a key recommendation of one of the core groups constituted by the I&B Ministry related to piracy and the need to tackle it strongly. "The Ministry will be taking it up in consultation with the Ministry of Human Resource Development, the nodal agency for copyright matter."

Content auditing

S.K. Arora, I&B Secretary, said the Government was working on overhauling the Cinematograph Act, 2951 and the effort would be to simplify the certification process and give and impetus to the growth of digital cinema. Further, he said the committee on content had laid down "dos and don'ts" and had classified the content into nine themes, each of which had been vetted for subject matter treatment and audio-visual categorisation. "Once the content code and certification guidelines are finalised, all content providers will be expected to carry out content auditing to ensure that content conforms to the guidelines."

The four elements of regulatory framework which the government would support the industry included bringing the consumer to centre stage — "Consumer is king and we have to offer choice, competition and affordable price and the regulatory framework should be toward this. Secondly, we must encourage and induce investment to upgrade technology and encourage new business models to cater to Indian demography," said Mr. Arora.

Encourage competition

Further, he said the aim was to encourage competition and have as many platforms as possible as they were all converging and finally, the exhorted the entertainment industry to go global. "We will continue to provide regulatory and legislative support to enable Indian entertainment industry to leave its stamp globally."

On the growth in the radio industry, Mr. Arora said, the Phase II FM radio policy formulated last year was a resounding success with over 60 radio stations going on stream in the last three months.

"In the next few months, over 300 stations are expected to spring up across 90 cities and we hope that by year-end, all the 50-odd pending frequencies will be functional.''

Italy has been selected as partner country for this year's FRAMES and Paolo Gentiloni Silveri, Italy's Minister of Communication, said that it was the right time to promote Indian and Italian locations for film production and the governments of both countries were committed to creating an enabling environment with systematic regulation of the industry.

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