Recently, The Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), has announced the appointment of Justice (Retd.) Vikramjit Sen as the Chairman, along with six other renowned industry members for the lately formed Digital Media Content Regulatory Council (DMCRC).

The Council constitutes well-known personalities from the Media & Entertainment industry and Online Curated Content Providers (OCCPs), with occurrence in IPR, programming, and content creation.

The Council includes national award-winning filmmaker Nikkhil Advani, Deepak Dhar, CEO and founder, Banijay Group, prominent artist, filmmaker, and writer Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, and creative writer and innovative director, Tigmanshu Dhulia. The other two members from the OCCPs include Ashok Nambisan, General Counsel, Sony Pictures Pvt. Ltd, and Mihir Rale, Chief Regional Counsel, Star, and Disney India.

The self-regulatory body which is created as per the authorization of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 with lively consultation between the creative industry fraternity is accepted to create a convincing, strong, and practical code for content, with a comprehensive and flaxen governance arrangement under the veteran chairmanship of Justice (Retd.) Vikramjit Sen.

K. Madhavan, President, IBF, states, “I am delighted that so many experts from the media and entertainment industry have come forward and accepted the invitation of IBDF to be part of the proposed self-regulatory body. I look forward to working with the Council whose mandate is to ensure freedom of expression of the Indian creative industry as well as help the discerning audience of the OTT platforms to have unhindered access to world-class and differentiated content. This is a historical and win-win moment for all the stakeholders i.e. the M&E industry, the policymakers, and the subscribers of the OTT platforms.”

IBF is being renamed as Indian Broadcasting and Digital Foundation (IBDF), as it expands its purview to cover digital platforms to convey all digital (OTT) players under one roof. This industry-led Self-Regulatory Body (SRB) called Digital Media Content Regulatory Council (DMCRC) for digital OTT platforms is a second-tier mechanism at the next level, similar to Broadcast Content Complaint Council (BCCC).