Radio stations risk closure if they fail to comply with Content Standards Regulations 2015
Electronic media operators such as radio and television stations risk closure if they contravene a new Legislative Instrument (LI 2224) passed by Parliament to empower the National Media Commission (NMC) to sanitise the airwaves.
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The law allows the NMC to establish and maintain standards in the distribution of the content of public electronic communication and broadcasting services.
The LI, Content Standards Regulations 2015, passed by Parliament on December 9, 2015, also empowers the NMC to grant content authorisation to an operator or revoke same, if an operator, comprising mainstream radio and television broadcasters, telecommunications operators or their agents, or any company that distributes electronic content, contravenes the regulations.
Before the law was passed, a few eminent Ghanaians had expressed concerns about the media, especially, the weaknesses in the regulatory framework for broadcasting in Ghana.
According to regulation 3 (1) of the law “An operator shall not convey or permit to be carried, content on a public electronic communications service or a broadcasting service without obtaining a content authorisation from the Commission.
“An operator who contravenes sub-regulation (1) commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction, to a fine of not less than five thousand penalty units and not more than fifty thousand penalty units or to a term of imprisonment of not less than two years and not more than five years or to both the fine and term of imprisonment.”
Significance
In an exclusive interview with the Daily Graphic last Sunday on the importance of the new law, the Executive Secretary of the NMC, Mr George Sarpong, said it was to ensure that distributors of content employed minimum standards in their work.
“What the law says is that everybody carrying content in electronic communication must abide by certain minimum standards for professional performance. It completely changes the media environment in the sense that it gives legislative powers to the NMC to do its work and to enhance professionalism in broadcast,” he said.
Non-traditional broadcast media
Mr Sarpong also said there were now evolving platforms for the delivery of content other than the traditional electronic services such as the radio, television and the Internet.
He mentioned some of those platforms as the various content services offered by the various telecommunications operators to their subscribers and demonstrated why the contents needed some guidelines or standards.
Mr Sarpong added that the regulations were also aimed at ensuring the accurate and impartial reporting and presentation of news and making sure that electronic programmes were not harmful to audiences.
He said to aid the monitoring, basic monitoring systems had been acquired with the assistance of the European Union (EU) for Accra and Kumasi, with a mobile monitoring unit currently stationed at the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation for other areas.
Qualification and Transferability
Under the law, an operator is not qualified to apply for content authorisation unless that operator is a citizen of Ghana or a registered body corporate; a registered professional body or association; or a registered partnership.
It also ends the challenge of the hidden identity of media owners since it is a key requirement for an application and also bars an operator from transferring content authorisation, which is valid for three years, to another person without the prior written approval of the NMC.
Monitoring
It further mandates the NMC to monitor content carried by the operators to ensure compliance and states that “where the commission has cause to believe that a breach of these regulations has occurred or is occurring, the commission may initiate an investigation into the activity of the operator concerned.”
It says that where the commission determines that there has been a breach, a content authorisation given to the operator may be reviewed, modified, suspended or revoked.
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