Broadcasters want bill on broadcasting to be revised

Broadcasters want bill on broadcasting to be revised

Muhammad Nafik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The House of Representatives is in the final stages of
deliberating the controversial broadcasting bill and will likely
approve it later next month despite mounting pressure from media
companies for the House to revise the bill.

Paulus Widiyanto, who chairs the House's special committee
deliberating the bill, said on Tuesday that the House would soon
pass the controversial bill into law, defying widespread
criticism of its contentious articles.

"The House will endorse the broadcasting bill between Sept. 10
and 23. That's our target," he said after addressing a seminar on
the impacts of the draft law on the development of television
networks.

Paulus claimed that his committee had made several significant
revisions to the bill that was proposed by the House in September
2000.

The revisions included the establishment of an independent
regulatory body by the House with the authority, along with the
government, to set a code of conduct for electronic media, issue
licenses, impose sanctions and regulate frequency distribution,
he said.

Paulus said that under the revised bill, a body called the
Indonesian Broadcast Commission (KPI), would be formed at the
regional level by local legislative councils to oversee local
television networks.

However, critics say the revisions are not substantial enough
to maintain the freedom of electronic and print media, which they
have been enjoying since the fall of former authoritarian
president Soeharto in 1998.

"This is shown by at least 21 of the bill's 63 articles that
carry the threat of imprisonment and fines for broadcast media,"
Leo Batubara, coordinator of the Indonesian Broadcasting and
Press Society (MPPI), told the same seminar without elaborating.

Djafar Assegaff of the Metro TV network urged the House to
delay its plan to pass the bill into law until after grievances
voiced by broadcast media operators were adequately addressed.

Radio and television operators have opposed the bill for
banning or limiting media cross-ownership and requiring
electronic media to renew frequency distribution licenses after
10 years of operations.

Other critics said the broadcasting bill should be revised,
otherwise it would again curb press freedom and dwarf the growth
of media companies in the crisis-hit country.

"Licenses should be granted only once (for broadcast media)
and at a certain period they should be required only to renew the
registration," Djafar told the same seminar.

"It's important to ensure business certainty for television
operators to calculate the return of their investment," he added.

Suryopratomo, a senior journalist from the leading Kompas
daily, said the move to limit media cross-ownership would defy
the era of global convergency, in which media owners were
struggling to survive or trying to develop their business by
combining the ownerships of television, radio, newspapers and
Internet media.

"Such a convergency is unavoidable. It makes media companies
efficient and able to disseminate information very quickly from a
long distance," he said.