In a bid to put a ceiling on the broadcasting contents of television and to respond to the criticism it has faced in recent days, Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) has formulated ‘Self Regulatory Guidelines and Complaints Redressal Mechanism' for all non-news and current affairs television channels including general entertainment, children and special interest channels.
Addressing mediapersons in the city recently, Uday Shankar, President, IBF, Director Media Content and Communications Services, informed that IBF in its Board of Directors meeting has unanimously approved the guidelines and mechanism. The working of the BCCC and the Code is expected to come into effect from June 1.
He further said that the guidelines will usher in an efficient, transparent and independent self regulatory mechanism that will provide the channels with certain guiding principles for content programming, usher in a redressal mechanism for bona fide complaints from viewers, while at the same time enabling programming creativity to flourish without ad hoc intervention from various statutory authorities and pressure groups.
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The redressal mechanism will be a two-tier process which will provide viewers an opportunity to complain first at the broadcaster or channel level and in the case of no response or and unsatisfactory response, the complainant can approach the Broadcasting Content Complaints Council (BCCC) at the industry level, which will have 13 members.
At present, Justice AP Shah, former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court, is the chairperson of the BCCC. The other members of BCCC will include four non-broadcaster members, four members from National level statutory commissions and four Broadcaster members. In all 272 channels of 42 companies have participated in the self-imposed restrictions.
Broadcaster member will change after every one year while non-broadcaster members will be changed after every three years as per the guidelines. Though, the committee has no legal power of taking action against anyone, Shankar said that if any member turned rogue and does not follow the guideline, the committee will recommend from the government to cancel the license of that particular channel.
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Other members present on the occasion were Chief Executive Officer of Network 18, Haresh Chawla, Vice Chairman and MD, Sri Adhikari Brothers Television Network, Markand Adhikari and Managing Director of Zee News Ltd, Punit Goenka.
They jointly informed that a delegation of IBF members will shortly meet the Information and Broadcasting minister to inform her about the implementation of the self regulatory guidelines and complaints redressal mechanism.