nto 2.0

This, the 57th episode of the award-winning MVP – The Master’s Voice Podcast, features industry veteran Paritosh Joshi- Principal at Provocateur Advisory, in conversation with Pavan R Chawla, Founder-Editor of MediaBrief.com. and we disuss TRAI's 'regulation of the broadcast sector in general and its most recent consultaion paper on the travesty called NTO 2.0 in particular.

The TRAI report card, says Paritosh, has been a litany of failure right from the first mandate it received, till today. Across its 25 years so far, Paritosh says what TRAI has -- unlike the OfComs and other bodies of the world -- is authority without responsibility.

We discuss TRAI’s ‘regulation’ of the broadcast sector in general, and its most recent consultation paper seeking inputs and guidance on the travesty called  NTO 2.0. The straight-talking, richly experienced ‘Provocateur’ Paritosh, who has been helping empower industry bodies like ASCI and the Media Research Users Council MRUC, and has been President and Head of Sales and Distribution at India’s top network, the Star Network, brings to our discussion knowledge and insights from a rich and proven professional career.

At  this point in time, after a quarter century of its deleterious misadventure with broadcast regulation,   the industry too would likely want to repeat Paritosh’s words as a message to TRAI: 'You are now doing a public disservice, and it is about time you cut our losses. Please don’t do any more disservice… Ab to jaan chhordo yaar! (at least now, spare us, please!)'. That, says Paritosh, is basically what nobody has been able to tell TRAI in as many words so far

We discuss TRAI’s performance as a broadcast regulator, and Paritosh responds to some of the questions in the consultation paper.  And shares several thoughts about TRAI’s ‘capability’ and multiple failures across 25 years of intrusive ineptitude as a regulator of the broadcast sector.

TRAI, Paritosh says, has failed the broadcast sector because it is a regulator that was designed for working on a commodity style of product, telecom, and not a highly differentiated style of product which is what Broadcasting is all about. And which is utterly alien to TRAI’s vocabulary. TRAI tried to force-fit the telecom regulatory style to the broadcast sector, and they failed it.

In fact, even the very first job TRAI was tasked with by a judicial body – that of implementing CAS in India, TRAI failed in, in spectacular fashion: CAS never happened.  It is instructive, Paritosh says,  that after more than two decades of being the accidental broadcast regulator, one has to look closely for the term ‘broadcast’ in the official TRAI presence and wi

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We have two podcast series: MVP - The Master's Voice Podcast, and MediaCast. Both are published by MediaBrief.com.

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Very recently, Koan Advisory Group, headed by Vivan Sharan, brought out an extremely relevant and important document that chronicles the impact of regulation on the televisoin broadcast sector in India. The report, entitled  INDIAN TV BROADCASTING AT A CROSSROADS - An Assessment of Regulatory Outcomes and the Way Forward, which you can download here, is an extremely insightful and telling look at the impact of (our words, not Koan's) the heavy-handed, sans-logic and authoritarian treatment that Television broadcasters seem to have received at the hands of regulator TRAI.

Pavan R Chawla caught up with two young masters, experts in the domains of Media & Entertainment and Broadcast, Vivan  Sharan, Founder of the Koan Advisory Group, and Farah Bookwala, formerly a journalist with leading English Business News Channel CNBV TV18 and now a freelance writer for several business publications, and also an expert in the Media & Entertainment space.

Listen to these two young masters' expert conversation with Pavan R Chawla to feel the extent of damage that unbridled, uncalled for regulation has caused the Indian Broadcast eco system, which is the lifeline of one of the world's largest creative, content economies  and thanks to the regressive NTO  and NTO 2.0, is facing crippling losses and ruin, with the biggest sufferer being the end consumer, the viewer of television entertainment.       

Want to pitch someone to be featured?

We have two podcast series: MVP - The Master's Voice Podcast, and MediaCast. Both are published by MediaBrief.com.

So, if you want to pitch someone to be considered for our podcasts, here's how you can do it:

• First, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram.
• Then, write to us at pavan [at] mediabrief dot com and alliances [at] mediabrief dot com, and also share links to your profiles that are following us.

Connecting socially is something we believe in and advocate. So go ahead. Reach out. We're happy, social souls.