India TV's quitting the NBSDRA will cost it audience, advertising and goodwill.
India’s broadcast regulations for news channels are off to a bad start. After several years of false starts and incomplete toing and froing of guidelines, the self-regulatory regime was put in place in 2008. It has a well thought-out structure with a retired Chief Justice chairing a panel that comprises four television news editors and four other eminent persons, including a former United Nations Undersecretary, Nitin Desai.
The walkout by India TV, one of the television channels in the News Broadcasting Standards Disputes Redressal Authority (NBSDRA), could spell the death-knell of the media’s attempt at self-regulation. News reports suggest that some editors cheered the departure of India TV. There is nothing to cheer because there is more at stake than meets the eye.
The outcome was not entirely unexpected. At a conference on media governance last year, we had said that the most important factor in the success of the self-regulatory regime was the motivation of the stakeholders—in this case, television channels.
Self-regulation can work in certain contexts. In general, it works best when there is a small number of big players (as opposed to a big number of small players), when there is maturity in the market (and the television news industry is a mature market as opposed to an emerging one), when there is a motivated industry and when there is a government regulatory backstop to penalise the recalcitrant offender.
The television news industry satisfies the first two criteria for success: the relatively small number of players and the maturity of the industry. The fourth criterion of a regulatory backstop to punish recalcitrant offenders comes into play only because the offender is not motivated to comply with the regulations set up by industry. It is therefore the motivation of industry that is critical to the success of the entire regulatory regime.
In the media sector, the most prevalent use of self-regulation globally is in advertising. There, advertising agencies are motivated to comply with the code of ethics because multinational companies the world over refuse to use an agency that does not comply with the advertising code in the country. No MNC would want to be accused of not complying with an advertising code of ethics.
Advertisers are also willing to comply with an advertising code because often, the “offence” of an advertisement is in offending the taste of the populace. Subjecting an advertisement to the code is in effect to subject it to a taste test of industry experts.
The “taste test” is a key strength of the News Broadcasting self-regulatory regime where a television news channel is judged by its peers and the community. Four of the nine panelists adjudicating the matter are television news editors but that must be the point—that NBSDRA takes both the views of the industry as well as the views of the community at large. And if there are doubts, the Chairman, a fair-minded Chief Justice, tilts it slightly in favour of the community. To have India TV walk out from the self-regulatory regime means that it is outside the purview of regulation.
Given the background and context, what can be done to ensure that India TV rejoins the self-regulatory fold?
First, as with the advertising industry, the advertising agencies and advertisers can have a role: boycott India TV. That is, the associations of the advertising industry could adopt the position that its members would only advertise in television stations that submit to NBSDRA. This is a powerful incentive because there are crores in revenue at stake.
Second, television viewers might want to boycott India TV. This will be more difficult because the audience is not organised but this would be a powerful signal that the community wants some oversight of television news.
Third, the government will have to pass the regulatory backstop that penalises a television station such as India TV more severely when it is outside NBSDRA than when it is inside. For a start, it could, say, increase the fine by ten-fold whatever it would otherwise have been with NBSDRA.
We have been impressed with the thought that has gone into the design of NBSDRA. The appointment of a retired Chief Justice as Chairman, and the mix of industry and respected community leaders, ensure the inputs of both industry and community. Without NBSDRA, commercial logic would compel the television stations to compete ruthlessly for the maximum number of viewers. The presence of NBSDRA minimises such potentially harmful competition.
India Television should return to the NBSDRA where its representative has a seat on the panel as an adjudicator. Not to return will mean the downfall of NBSDRA and create losers all around. The industry loses because the government will have to step in and subject the industry to bureaucratic rules. The government itself loses because it will have to spend time and money to draw up the rules. The public loses too because the absence of rules will lead to a race to the bottom; television will only get worse, not better.
The biggest loser will be India Television. It stands to lose audience, advertising and goodwill. Television news is too important to have a lacuna. If that gap is plugged by the government, we know who to blame.
Peng Hwa Ang is Visiting Dean and Aparimita Pramanik is Research Associate, Mudra Institute of Communications Research
