Our notes from the law commission consultation on Media Regulation. Note that some parts may be paraphrased, and some sentences missed: Justice Ravindran: "Indian media requires regulation. What is needed to be debated is the extent of regulation. What can be the regulations? - At one end of the spectrum is what is advocated, which is complete statutory regulation, that is the media to be governed by rules and regulations, through a regulator whose members are appointed by the government. - The second choice is an independent regulator who decides the extent of the regulator. - The third is an non statutory independent regulator, appointed by the trade associations. - The fourth is non statutory self regulation, where every media entity creates and provides its own grievance redressal mechanism. There are persons who advocate the steps of absolute statutory regulation. I may share a few thoughts about how NBSA (News Broadcasting Standards Authority) has felt. NBSA has worked to the extent: there are 365 news channels. All of them are not really news channels. Some of them are entertainment channels who also show some news. Out of them, about 50 or 60 are members of the News Broadcasting Authority. 120-130 are not members of the NBSA. For the present, even though 60 are members, around 80% of viewership is controlled by most of these. How can a voluntary body be effective when only 60 are members? The 50-60 channels who are members of NBSA are ready to follow the rules.…
