The meeting will be attended by the top brass of the NBDA, including India TV chairman Rajat Sharma, TV18 Broadcast MD Rahul Joshi, TV Today Network vice chairperson Kalli Purie, and NDTV whole-time director Sanjay Pugalia, among others.
Sources add that the NBDA has not circulated any specific agenda for the meeting. “NBDA officials have been told to be on standby for the meeting,” one of the sources added.
In February, the NBDA expressed strong reservations about the draft Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill 2023. The first draft of the bill was circulated in November 2023, while the second draft was provided to select stakeholders in July 2024.
The ministry of information and broadcasting (MIB) had recently asked the stakeholders to return the hard copies of the draft bill. The ministry also stated that it will hold wider consultations with stakeholders before issuing a fresh draft.
The broadcast bill has been met with stiff resistance from the media industry for bringing OTT and digital news under its ambit. The second draft went a step further and treated social media users beyond a certain threshold, which was to be notified later, as OTT broadcasting service operators or digital news broadcasters.In its submissions to the MIB, NBDA stated that the broadcast bill gives excessive powers to government officials. It had also stated that some of the definitions and provisions are vague and ambiguous.The NBDA had also raised concerns about the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, since it gave power to government agencies to take down content that it considers fake.
Another important issue that is expected to come up for discussion is that of the Department of Telecom’s (DoT) plans to open the 3700-4200 MHz spectrum band for telecom operators for provisioning of 5G/6G services.
Last year, NBDA had written to the DoT stating that shifting the broadcasters from the current frequency band of 3700 to 4200 MHz to 4000 to 4200 MHz will sound the death knell for the broadcasting sector.
The NBDA had also stated that the reduction of bandwidth on the C-band spectrum will lead to a reduction of 60% capacity across all satellites, because of which more than 40 transponders would have to move to higher frequencies, which will create serious and irreversible disruptions in the broadcasting industry.
NBDA comprises 28 leading news and current affairs broadcasters who run 73 news and current affairs channels and 54 digital news platforms.
