Representatives of Alt Balaji, Hotstar, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Jio, Zee5, Viacom18, Shemaroo, MxPlayer among others attended the meeting.
INFORMATION AND Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar Thursday held a meeting with representatives of OTT platforms, the first after the government’s announcement of rules governing such content. He said all the representatives who attended the meeting welcomed the new rules.
In a tweet, Javadekar said, “Had a fruitful meeting with representatives from OTT industry and explained the provisions of the OTT rules. All representatives have welcomed the new guidelines. The ministry and industry will partner together to make the OTT experience better for all audience.”
Representatives of Alt Balaji, Hotstar, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Jio, Zee5, Viacom18, Shemaroo, MxPlayer among others attended the meeting. Government officials said Javadekar, in the meeting, referred to several rounds of previous consultations and “stressed the need for self-regulation”.
According to a senior official, the minister said that he had received representations from cinema and TV industries and that while regulations existed for them, there were none for the OTT industry. “Thus, it was decided that the government would come out with progressive institutional mechanism for OTT players and develop a level playing field with the idea of self-regulation. The minister appreciated that many OTT platforms had welcomed the rules,” the official said.
Ministry officials said that it was conveyed that OTT platforms merely have to “disclose information and that there is no requirement of registration of any kind with the ministry.”
Several OTT platform representatives were reached for comments but refused to comment. One executive representative said, “It was a general meeting which was meant to clarify the government position.”
Source: Read Full Article