Voluntary self-regulation isn't working, NBDA tells Parliamentary panel on fake news

A Parliamentary Standing Committee report on curbing fake news has put fresh spotlight on a long-standing demand from the News Broadcasters & Digital Association (NBDA) — that it be allowed to regulate all satellite television news channels operating in India, irrespective of whether they choose to become its members or not, a request the industry body says it has been making to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) for nearly 16 years without resolution.

The disclosure features in the 28th Report of the Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology, chaired by Dr Nishikant Dubey, which was presented to the Lok Sabha on August 6. The report tracks the government's action taken on the Committee's earlier 22nd Report on the "Review of Mechanism to Curb Fake News," tabled in December 2025.

Only a fraction of channels are self-regulated

The numbers cited in the report underline the scale of the problem NBDA has been flagging. As of November 30, 2024, MIB had permitted 919 television channels to operate in India. 

Of these, just 318 channels were members of the Broadcasting Content Complaints Council (BCCC), the self-regulatory body for the general entertainment industry, while another 58 were affiliated with the News Broadcasters Federation - Professional News Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBF-PNBSA), a rival self-regulatory body for news broadcasters.

That leaves 543 channels — well over half of all permitted broadcasters — without membership in any self-regulatory body (SRB) at all, effectively outside the reach of the industry-led grievance redressal mechanisms that are meant to check fake and defamatory content on air.

NBDA's core grievance: voluntary membership doesn't work

When the Committee asked the Ministry how these unaffiliated channels could be brought under some form of self-regulation, MIB pointed to a June 2023 measure: a condition inserted into the uplinking/downlinking permission framework for satellite TV channels, requiring broadcasters to either join an SRB registered with the Ministry or set up and register their own SRB. Details of this requirement were communicated to broadcasters on May 30, 2023.

NBDA, however, told the Committee this approach doesn't work in practice. According to the association, when television channels realise that joining a self-regulatory body means submitting to oversight, they simply choose not to become members — and in that scenario, NBDA has no authority to act against them, since its jurisdiction under the current framework extends only to its own members.

To address this gap, NBDA has been asking the Ministry — for close to 16 years, per its submission to the Committee — to change the rules so that all news channels fall under its regulatory purview and are subject to its Self-Regulatory Body's oversight, whether or not they have formally signed up as members. 

The Committee also noted that, separately, the Ministry has not received any application from NBDA seeking registration as a Level-II self-regulatory body under Rule 18(2) of the Cable Television Networks (CTN) Rules, 2021 — a procedural detail that appears to sit alongside, rather than resolve, the association's broader demand.

Committee's view: bring every channel under the umbrella

The Standing Committee, in its original report, explicitly endorsed NBDA's position. While acknowledging that most stakeholders supported strengthening self-regulatory mechanisms to curb fake news, the panel said that for the system to be genuinely effective, all TV channels needed to be brought under its umbrella — not just those that volunteer to join. 

It also praised the Ministry's move to write the SRB-membership condition into uplinking/downlinking permissions, and went further, recommending that fact-checking mechanisms and an internal ombudsman be made mandatory across all print, digital and electronic media organisations in the country.

Government's reply: rules exist, but no fresh commitment on NBDA's ask

In its Action Taken Reply, the Ministry reiterated the legal basis for self-regulation rather than announcing any new steps to meet NBDA's specific request. It cited Rule 17(1)(iv) of the Cable Television Networks (Amendment) Rules, 2021, which requires every broadcaster to be a member of an SRB and comply with its terms, and pointed again to the May 2023 advisory sent to all broadcasters.

For digital news publishers, the government noted that Part III of the IT Rules, 2021 already establishes a three-level grievance redressal structure with two tiers of self-regulation — the publisher itself at Level I, and a Self-Regulatory Body at Level II, with the MIB's oversight mechanism forming the third and final tier. 

On the question of an internal ombudsman for print media, the Ministry said it had written to the Press Council of India on July 31, 2025, seeking suggestions for amending the Press Council Act, 1978, to reflect the current media landscape — a process that, per the report, is still pending as the Council itself awaits reconstitution.

Because the reply did not directly engage with NBDA's central ask — bringing non-member channels under its regulatory ambit — the Committee has now asked to be informed of the implementation status of the May 2023 advisory, essentially seeking hard data on how many of the 543 unaffiliated channels have since joined a self-regulatory body.

NBDSA's penalty ladder for violations

The report also sheds light on how NBDA's self-regulatory arm, the News Broadcasting & Digital Standards Authority (NBDSA), actually punishes channels found in violation of its Code of Conduct — a graded system the Committee cited approvingly while pushing for tougher, standardised penalties across all media forms.

Under Regulation 7 of the News Broadcasting & Digital Standards Regulations, NBDSA can, for a first violation, issue a warning, admonishment, censure, disapproval, expression of regret or a demand for an apology, and/or impose a fine of up to Rs 2 lakh. Penalties escalate with repeat violations: up to Rs 5 lakh for a second offence, Rs 10 lakh for a third, and for a fourth violation, a fine of up to 1% of the channel's total annual turnover — capped at Rs 25 lakh.

The Committee held this up as an example of a workable graded-penalty model and recommended that similar escalating deterrents — running from warning to apology to fine to suspension to complete blocking or taking a channel off air — be considered for all forms of media, along with clearer rules on who is accountable: editors and content heads for editorial lapses, owners and publishers for institutional failures, and intermediaries or platforms for enabling the spread of fake content.

The unresolved thread

With the recommendation on self-regulatory mechanisms formally marked as "accepted" by the Committee, the file is technically closed for now. But the underlying issue that triggered NBDA's 16-year campaign — 543 channels operating without any self-regulatory oversight — remains without a concrete resolution in the government's latest reply, leaving the association's core demand still on the table as the Committee seeks updated compliance figures from the Ministry.