ISLAMABAD\u00a0– The Pakistan Electronic Media Regula\u00adtory Authority (Pemra) has refused the reports regarding draft consultation on regulating the Web TV and Over the Top TV (OTT) Content Services in Pakistan.<\/p>\n

In a statement issued by authority on Friday said that in media reports it was al\u00adleged that through the Draft Consultation on Regulating the Web TV & Over the Top TV (OTT) Content Services in Pakistan, Pemra intends to curtail the freedom of speech and gag voice. \u201cThe allegation is to\u00adtally denied. The objective\u00a0for the Consul\u00adtation on Regulating Web TV and OTT con\u00adtent services is elaborated in Section 1.2 of the Consultation Paper wherein it has been elaborated that the extensive growth of the web TV and OTT market and the excessive disruption of these services to tradition\u00adal broadcast services have made regula\u00adtors vigilant all over the world,\u201d it stated<\/p>\n

It further said, moreover, the broad\u00adcasters and TV operators and other tra\u00additional service providers are losing their market share to online web TV and con\u00adtent providers. \u201cAlthough, there was other regulatory issues also which necessitate it to bring under regulations the Web TV & OTT services. For example all Pemra licensed broadcasters are subject to com\u00adpliance with Code of Conduct-2015 which required the operators to have in-house time delaying mechanism and editorial control to filter out content which is not in compliance with the Code etc,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n

Pemra said, however, the web TV and OTT players were not subject to any code of conduct and other authori\u00adty laws. Moreover, as a regulator, it was the responsibility of Pemra to provide a level playing field to all stakeholders. Since OTT and Web TV operators were competing for the same advertisement or subscription revenue as the licensed operators, therefore, it was imperative that the services be regulated at par with other services. It claimed that Pemra has received tremendous response from some stakeholders, including internation\u00adal players on the consultation process.<\/p>\n

As a result of public feedback received through this consultation process, rec\u00adommendations for regulating the web TV and OTT content will be finalised. It is unfortunate that instead of giving feed\u00adback in a professional way and sharing concerns if any with the regulator, some individuals and organisations have adopt\u00aded a highly objectionable way of simply rejecting the consultation process and have initiated a smear campaign against Pemra. It said more the news that Pem\u00adra has circulated another version of the draft regulation with the federal cabinet is totally false and devoid of any facts.<\/p>\n

The Nation<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ISLAMABAD – The Pakistan Electronic Media Regula­tory Authority (Pemra) has refused the reports regarding draft consultation on regulating the Web TV and Over the Top TV (OTT) Content Services in Pakistan. In a statement issued by authority on Friday said that in media reports it was al­leged that through the Draft Consultation on Regulating the Web […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[4],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8377"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8377\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}