You're reading it here first: A group of about one hundred internet companies wants the Indian Broadcasting Foundation to review an advertisement policy which requires them to pay the entirety of funds for their marketing campaigns to TV channels, upfront. In late September, Policybazaar’s co-founder and CEO, Yashish Dahiya wrote a letter to IBF president K. Madhavan, on behalf of ‘The Tech/Digital/New Economy companies of India’ calling for the body to review the policy. MediaNama has seen a copy of the letter sent to the IBF. Apart from Policybazaar, edu-tech platform upGrad, co-founded by Ronnie Screwvala, is among the members of this group. Dahiya declined to name any of the other organisations involved. The IBF is a not-for-profit organisation, and claims to manage over 350 TV channels, and about 90% of television viewership across country. An industry source we spoke with said that Internet companies are seen by IBF as more likely to default on their dues, which is why member TV channels insist that they pay 100% of their marketing dues to them even before the campaign starts. Due to the same reason, internet companies don't get any credit from TV channels, which blocks a large part of their marketing funds. Several industry representatives from the marketing industry that MediaNama spoke to, who did not wish to be named, concurred that these practises towards internet companies are discriminatory, more so, because lately, these companies have become among the largest spenders on TV marketing campaigns. MediaNama has reached out to…
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