These rules are designed to promote ease of doing business in the television and radio broadcasting sector
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The government on Friday published the draft telecommunication rules related to television, radio and associated services for public consultation. The proposed rules aim to establish a single regulatory framework for these mediums, extending the existing mandate to air programmes on “themes of national importance and social relevance” from television channels to private radio services.The draft Telecommunications (Television, Radio and Associated Services) Rules, 2026 state that while TV channels would be required to air at least 30 minutes of content every day on themes of national importance and social relevance for a minimum of 30 minutes daily between 6AM and 11PM. Radio stations will have to dedicate one hour for the same purpose every day.Unified rule bookWith this set of rules, the industry will now have a unified and significantly simplified rule book. These rules are designed to simplify and harmonise the existing regime while promoting ease of doing business in the television and radio broadcasting sector, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) said in the notification.While airing of such content was made obligatory for TV four years ago under the ‘Guidelines for Uplinking and Downlinking of Television Channels in India, 2022’, no time slot was specified in the earlier rules. Therefore, the latest draft seeks to address that gap. Also, under the FM Policy Phase-III, private radio stations were so far required to broadcast “public interest announcements” for one hour every day “as may be required by the Central government/ State government”.However, in the draft released on Friday said that every authorised private radio service should “broadcast programmes focusing on themes of national importance and social relevance, in such manner as the Centre may specify, for a minimum duration of one hour per day”, making the nature of the public interest announcements that they will be expected to make clearer.Moreover, while the current guidelines says that TV channels “may undertake public service broadcasting”, the draft seeks to change it to “shall”, making the obligation more airtight.Themes of contentThe suggested themes of content – education and spread of literacy; agriculture and rural development; health and family welfare; science and technology; women’s welfare; welfare of weaker sections of society; protection of environmental and cultural heritage; and national integration – in the existing rules have been retained in the draft.The obligation will exempt certain categories where compliance may not be feasible, it said.Channels uplinked from India exclusively for foreign audiences will also not be covered, subject to government clearances and ensuring that content does not affect India’s sovereignty, integrity, national security or foreign relations, the draft noted.Incidentally, a clause in the existing guidelines for television that the Centre may issue a general advisory to channels for telecast of “content in national interest, and the channel shall comply with the same” finds no mention in the draft rules.The draft retains the existing policy that private radio players can only broadcast the “unaltered news bulletins of Akashwani”, other than certain other “non-news” subjects, including sports events, information related to traffic and weather, examinations, and results.The MIB has sought comments from the stakeholders by July 27.Published on June 12, 2026
