Night slot likely for adult shows

Get ready for a new television age, one that allows late night adult content and protects your privacy, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: May 31, 2007, 05:25:38 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Get ready for a new television age, one that allows late night adult content and protects your privacy.

A new draft content code by the central government specifies watershed timing of 11 pm to 4 am to show adult shows, provided the programme has an ‘A’ certification from the Censor Board. Till now, movies or music albums certified as fit for viewing under the Universally Adult (UA) rating are allowed.

This meets the promise made by Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, who had said that those who want to watch adult content should keep awake late to watch adult movies.

Naresh Chahal of Indian Broadcasters Foundation welcomed the watershed timing. “It is a good thing. People who cannot afford high ticket prices at cinemas will get good content on television,” he said.

The new content code that the ministry will discuss with the television industry on Thursday mentions that those violating privacy of an individual or a group will face action ranging from suspension of transmission to a ban on the channel for a certain period.

This, industry officials believe, will most hurt the interest of news channels which show sting operations. “Judging whether someone’s privacy has been violated is very subjective,” said an official with a media company, requesting anonymity.

The new content code tries to define contentious issues like obscenity and showing women in bad light. Ministry officials said the content code would be part of the Broadcast Regulation Bill likely to be introduced in the monsoon session of Parliament. The code is expected to face stiff opposition from the television industry on Thursday.

chetan@hindustantimes.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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