The Secretary, Ministry Of ... vs Cricket Association Of Bengal & ... on 9 February, 1995 the broadcasting, viz., the character of the broadcasting media, the author points out that it is said that television and radio, are more influential on public opinion than the press, or at least are widely thought to be so. The majority of the US Supreme Court in FCC v. Pacifica Foundation [438 US 726] said that they intrude into the home and are more pervasive and are more difficult to control than the print media. In particular, it is hard to prevent children from being exposed to broadcast while it is relatively easy to stop them looking at magazines and papers which in any case they will not be able to read or purchase. These grounds underpin the extension of legal control in Britain over violent and sexually explicit programmes through the establishment of Broadcasting Standard Council and the strengthening of the impartiality rules. In Third Television Case [57 B Verf GE 295, 3 22-3 (198 1)] the Ger- man Constitutional Court dealing with a different version of this argument has held that regulation is necessary to guarantee pluralism and programme variety, whether or not there is a shortage of frequencies and other broadcasting outlets. The free market will not provide for broadcasting the same variety found in the range of press and magazine titles. Hence programme content should be regulated and the media monopolies should be cut down by the application of anti-trust laws. Thus both the US and the German arguments lay stress on the power of television and its unique capacity to influence the public. According to the learned author, the arguments are difficult to assess. Broadcasting does not intrude into the home unless listeners and viewers want it to be. From the point of view of constitutional principles it is not easy to justify imposition of greater limits on the medium on the ground that it is more influential than the written words. It cannot be right to subject more persuasive types of speech to greater restraints than those-imposed on less effective varieties. The author, however, accepts the view of the majority of the US Supreme Court in Pacifica case [supra] which regarded broadcasting, particularly television, as a uniquely pervasive presence in the lives of most people. More time is spent watching television than reading. The presence of sound and picture in any home makes it an exceptional potent medium. It may also be harder to stop children having access to 'adult material' on television than to pornographic magazines. This may not apply to subscription channels, enjoyment of which is dependent on a special decoder. He also agrees that experience in the United States and more recently in Italy suggests that a free broadcasting market does not produce the same variety as the press and book publishing markets do. However, the author states that these three justifications for broadcasting regulation are inconclusive and it is doubtful whether the case is powerful enough to justify the radically different legal treatment of the press and broadcasting media. A separate question, according to the author, is whether it is appropriate to continue to treat radio in the same way as television since there is generally a large choice of local, if not national radio programmes and it is hard to believe that it exercises a dominating influence on the formation of public attitudes. The same question arises In respect of cable television. Although a licence has to be obtained from a licensing authority, several franchises may be physically accommodated and a wide band cable system may be able to carry upto 30 or 40 or even more channels. The scarcity rational, therefore, seems inapplicable to cable, and further it is hard to believe that this mode of broadcasting exercises such a strong influence that stringent programme regulation is justifiable. Dealing with the last reason advocated by a leading American scholar, Lee Bollinger in his article "Freedom of the Press and Public Access" and his essay "The Rational of Public Regulation of the Media" and in "Democracy and the MassMedia" [Cambridge (1990)] for the divergent treatment of the press and broadcasting media, the author points out that Bollinger accepts that there is no fundamental difference in the character of the two mass media, but argues that broadcasting being still relatively Indian Kanoon - http://indiankanoon.org/doc/539407/ 24