‘The Home Ministry Froze Ads To Papers’

The Union information and broadcasting ministry has been in the news for setting some regulatory norms for TV channels. Union I&B minister Ambika Soni explains some of the decisions taken by her ministry:

You have announced a new set of norms to regulate TV channels. This comes after what the government felt was biased coverage of Anna Hazare’s campaign. What prompted these moves?

Do you think that once the movement was over in August, we decided to come out soon after with the guidelines? Perhaps those who obtained broadcast licences forgot to read the guidelines on the ministry’s website. Licences to TV channels are given for 10 years. What does one do after that? All we did was to lay down the rules for renewal, subject to TV channels observing the programme code passed in Parliament. These guidelines have been on the website since February. Also, there are uplinking and downlinking guidelines spelling out the reasons for cancellation of licences. We have said that any decision (on cancellation) will be taken only after consultation with self-regulatory bodies and organisations. What’s wrong with that? The reason behind raising the investment level is to keep non-serious players out.

The government recently froze ads to some newspapers in Kashmir that are critical of the state. Are you trying to regulate the press this way?

I wasn’t kept in the loop and was told it was an administrative decision to do so, taken by the home ministry at the highest level. I phoned Union home minister P. Chidambaram and told him that while I can’t interfere with an administrative decision arrived at out of security concerns, I must know about such decisions. We’ll be discussing the issue soon and the decision will be reviewed. A freeze on ads should be the last resort; also, I must be kept in the loop.

Were you pressured to regulate the media during Hazare’s campaign?

The pressure on me was from across the political spectrum. But I can assure you that neither the PM nor Congress president Sonia Gandhi ever spoke about regulating the media. I used to ask TV journalists why they were going overboard with coverage of the movement. I also felt that some sections of the electronic media were no longer reporting but propagating. And how does one handle channels that aren’t on self-regulatory bodies? Faced with this, we engaged in constant dialogue with the News Broadcasting Association. We have become more liberal in our viewing habits, but the media has to be sensitive to viewers’ tastes too. After all, somewhere, my freedom, too, is enshrined in the Constitution. The media should be sensitive to that.