MIB extends deadline for comments on Sports Broadcasting Amendment Bill

The opportunity to submit comments and views on the Draft Sports Broadcasting Signals (Mandatory Sharing with Prasar Bharti) (Amendment) Bill 2018 has been extend by two weeks.

As the earlier deadline elapsed on January 31, 2018, The Ministry of Information has issued a notice to extend the last date. “It is informed that the deadline for receiving feedback/comments from General Public/Stakeholders on the said draft Bill, 2018 to enable telecast of ‘Sporting events of National importance’ on mandatory channels of Doordarshan via Cable/DTH/IPTV Operators has been further extended by this Ministry till 15.01.2019,” MIB has stated in the notice.

The Ministry had invited opinions on the proposed bill after putting the Draft Sports Broadcasting Signals (Mandatory Sharing with Prasar Bharti) (Amendment) Bill, 2018 in public domain on October 17. The feedback/comments are sought to finalise the bill, that will give Prasar Bharti bigger access to broadcast the sports events of national interest.

The amendments are aimed at providing widest possible reach to the sports events of national interest.

The section 3(1) of the Sports Act at present makes it mandatory for the broadcasters to share of the signals of such events with Prasar Bharti and “to show the Doordarshan channels as per the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995”. The ministry in its bid to extend the preview of the clause has sought feedback from people and the stakeholders.

The ministry in its earlier attempt to put the sports events on national importance’s Doordarshan feed on cable networks has failed after the Supreme Court had ruled that the public broadcaster Doordarshan cannot air events of national importance on private distribution platforms.

The ministry feels that the purpose of Sports Act 2007 gets defeated as a large number of viewers are either unable to watch these sporting events or are compelled to watch them on highly-priced sports channels.

The MIB had earlier extended the deadline from November 16 to December 31.

The first notice dated October 17 provided the time till November 16 (a month from the date of the issue of the notice) to give the mandatory feedback to enable telecast of  ‘Sporting Events of National Importance’ on mandatory channels of Doordarshan via cable/DTH/ IPTV operators.

Also read: Proposed Sports Act amendments to hit sports broadcasters hard

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