Broadcast Policy and Regulation - PowerPoint Presentation

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Broadcast Policy and Regulation(Licensing)

‘Yomi Bolarinwa,Msbe, mieee, fnseBroadcast Engineer

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BROADCAST POLICY

Policy in Broadcasting is critical to the shape and size of the system. Broadcast policy are a set of guidelines backed by legislation for the operation of broadcasting, and which provides a framework within which owners and operators (management) must function. Policy must address issues ranging from ownership through funding to operations, including safeguards citizenry who are consumers of broadcast products. A good policy must draw a clear line between social responsibility and commercialism2Slide3

BROADCAST POLICY It is the Government role to determine overall Broadcasting Policy and the structure of the domestic market. The Government has to decide how many players there will be, which technologies and where they should be located. The Policy must be given effect by legislation. It is within this framework setting out the goals of policy and the structure of the Broadcasting market that the regulator will work.

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Thoughts on Broadcast Policy

“The Bill deals with the means by which our society speaks to it self and, as it were hears the echo. It is the means by which we talk to the world, it is a shaper of our culture, our identity and our values. For the Government therefore, the Bill is not simply a device to regulate or deregulate an industry, it plays a vital role in every one of our wider aspirations as Britain.4Slide5

Thoughts on Broadcast Policy

It will give consumers choice, the variety that they demand and deserve and will give citizens the information that they need. It will free the industry of unnecessary interference, give it freedom to grow and diversify, allow it an opportunity to change as the world Communication changes, and to gain access to new sources of investment as well as new ideas and challenges. It prepares us for DIGITAL era.” British Minister, opening parliamentary debate on the Communication Bill of 20025Slide6

COMPOSITION OF BP A good Broadcast Policy must have the following ingredients;

Allow citizens to speak and hear their own voicesAllow the Nation talk to the worldMust shape our culture, our identity and our values.Must encourage pluralism and diversityGive freedom to the industryMust take us into and through the Digital era

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BEST BP The best policy will be one that each citizen however poor, should have access to Broadcast information from which he/she can make choices. In turn that goal holds implication for market structure and for content

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BROADCAST REGULATION There are different models of regulation, the principles that underpin these models are the importance of editorial and program independence and a pluralistic and diverse broadcasting system differentiated into three tiers namely

PublicCommunitycommercial8Slide9

BROADCAST REGULATION

Regulation framework must address both structural and behavioral aspects of broadcasting. Structural regulation refers to the broadcasting systems and institutional arrangements. Behavioral regulation refers to programming and content issues as they relate to, and affect the audience (Citizenry)9Slide10

A PEEP AT CONVERGENCE When former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore first used the term information superhighway in 1985, did he envisage the clogging of traffic on this highway ?

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INTERNET

The Internet can carry and deliver all modes of content on an interactive basis. Old distinctions between publishing, broadcasting, and telecommunications have already lost their meaning on the Internet. The segmentation of voice, video, and data traffic is also undermined, although not abolished. The Internet currently offers access to news content, mail and document distribution, financial services, photos and graphics, various forms of electronic commerce and digital money, games, real-time voice and music clips, and even some limited clips of real-time video. In addition, it has created new forms of media such as chat rooms, MUDs, search engines, and browsers. 11Slide12

INTERNET AS A CONTENT PLATFORM

The Internet's multimedia capabilities are still limited by congestion, low-band-width access to residences, and the presence of older chipsets in many home and office computers. Over time, however, new administrative arrangements, better pricing mechanisms, the expanding power of ICs, and equipment upgrades will reduce these barriers. Will the freeing of part of broadcast spectrum improve both access and efficiency of internet in our environment?12Slide13

BORDERLESS MARKET

The falling cost of bandwidth and processing power makes national boundaries increasingly irrelevant in determining the features of digital media. Unlike traditional telephony, there is no "distance premium" on the Internet and no regulatory regime, like the international settlements system, that makes data movements pay special taxes for crossing international borders. Multimedia content can be distributed globally and, via electronic commerce, services and products can be consumed from any point. It will become increasingly difficult and counterproductive for governments to monitor and control the movement of bits. A regime of increasingly free trade in information and telecommunication services and content seems inevitable. 13Slide14

CONSEQUENCES OF NEW MARKET

When entire motion pictures can be transmitted in encrypted form over international lines in a few seconds, and when Internet users can experience or download pictures, music or videos hosted on computers far outside their home country's jurisdiction, the concept of broadcasting laws and regulations that restrict ownership to nationals or prescribe the kind of content that people can view within the country cannot survive for long. 14Slide15

INTERNET CHALLENGES

The most common challenges associated with the internet today relate to things such as privacy protection, the fight against cyber crime, or discussion on copyright and fair use. Totally different from challenges facing broadcasting. If broadcast regulation provides safeguards for the audience and we recognise the harmful effects of some of the common challenges associated with the internet today, what needs to be done in a developing countries like ours where established laws and regulations have failed to deal with infractions or issues much more straightforward than those listed here?15Slide16

REGULATING THE INTERNET Policy and regulation for the internet should focus on what is called MEDIA LITERACY, a concept which refers to the ability to access, understand, and create media in variety of contexts.

In other words the role of regulation in internet is the control of the delivery of content over the internet.???????????????????16Slide17

INTERNET CONTENT

The internet content market is and will remain a global one, with no central control of the services offered and no single point consumer protection enforcement. A National regulator cannot manage a global content market, particularly one where there is no institution to be regulated. No channel, and no platform operator in overall control, either of the content or search and navigational tools the consumers use to find what they want17Slide18

NEW CONTENT REGULATION

There should be a new approach to content regulation. An approach built on a model of responsibility distributed across the value chain, relying on a combination of industry and consumer responsibility, where each participant has a role to play18Slide19

CHALLENGES It is obvious that broadcasting institutions are no longer National, political and cultural institutions, but also global and economic institutions. The challenge of policy and regulation is to ensure that the institutions do not become purely global and economic to the neglect of our culture and democracy

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EXPECTED ROLES

Content producers and aggregators can label content and provide age verification tools.Content producers and distributors should take the moral step of self regulation, by accepting responsibility if the purvey material that is harmful or injurious to society’s wellbeing.Hosts of users generated content such as You Tube or MySpace can (and have) develop community standards to define the types of content that they will make available and how they will deal with complaints.Search engines and navigational tools can provide assistance to protect consumers. Eg. Google, safe searchWeb hosts and ISPs work with self-regulation institutions ( such as the internet watch foundation) to take down illegal content, and voluntarily block illegal sites which are hosted outside their jurisdiction

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CONCLUSION

Our continent is currently witnessing political changes, democracy is taking firm roots. What is needed to aid the growth of democracy is a broadcast policy which favour diversity and pluralism and which guarantees the freedom of choice that is key benefit of digitisation to the audience. State control and regulation must give way to public broadcasters with independence in Editorial and Programming THAT WILL HAVE AT ITS CORE THE WELLBEING OF THE CITIZENRY. An independent regulator not an appendage of a ministry or minister nor government21Slide22

CONCLUSION

It is clear that the digital media is inherently more complex and fast moving than the analogue broadcasting, therefore our policy response to problematic content must be dynamic. The nature of regulation in this new environment, requires regulators to redefine themselves and their role. In this new context, any attempt by the regulator to micromanage distribution and consumption in a way which is characteristic of traditional television will be like fighting modern war with bows and arrows22Slide23

THANK YOU ALL

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