Mumbai: The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) provided for FDI up to 26 per cent under the Government approval route for entities involved in uploading/streaming of news and current affairs through digital media in a press note dated 18 September, 2019. DPIIT later issued a clarification in this regard in public communication No.5(4)/2019-FDI Policy dated 16 October , 2020.
Since then, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has received several representations from Chambers of Commerce and OTT platforms (covered by the IT Digital Media Ethics Code Rules, 2021) requesting clarification on whether the aforementioned decision would apply to OTT platforms hosting digital feeds of news channels.
It has been stated in the representations that OTT platforms only provide a platform for carriage of third party news and current affairs content of news channels on a "as is" basis, with no editorial intervention, and that OTT platforms are not involved in any aggregation/ curation of the news and current affairs content provided by such channels, but only host the news feed provided by such entities, much like a DTH or cable service provider.
The Ministry has looked into the matter. The goal of the Government's decision, as stated in the aforementioned Press Note, is to ensure that entities engaged in the activity of publishing/ curating/ aggregating news and current affairs content and uploading/ streaming the same via digital media have an FDI limit of up to 26 per cent through the Government approval route.
TV News Channels granted permission under the MIB's Uplinking and Downlinking Guidelines, 2022 (and earlier Guidelines of 2005 and 2011), as well as their entities operating digital news content, are already covered by the Central Government's FDI policy. As a result, if an OTT platform hosts the digital feed of a TV news channel (permission granted under the current Guidelines), the FDI limit of 26 per cent with Government approval route does not apply to the OTT platform for the sole activity of hosting such feed.
In its notice dated 10 March 2023, the MIB stated, “It is accordingly clarified that when an OTT platform is hosting digital feed of a TV news channel granted permission under the extant Uplinking & Downlinking Guidelines, only as a medium and makes it available to its subscribers/ users, such a OTT platform is not covered under the 26 per cent FDI rule.”
