The US-India Business Council (USIBC), an influential trade body, has said that broadcast regulator TRAI’s attempts to explore fresh regulations on media integration restrictions should follow after a market study has been conducted.

It also pointed out that “existing regulators are well-equipped to deal with any market distortions”, and further regulation is likely to be “counterproductive”.

“A market study should precede market interventions and regulators should prove a clear link between the actions it takes and the market failure it looks to solve. In this case, TRAI has not conducted a market study or shown evidence of market failure. Relevant markets cannot be delineated without a market study,” USIBC stated in its submission on TRAI’s exhaustive consultation on ‘Issues Relating to Media Ownership’, which is aimed at to ascertain if monopolies exist and whether such an ecosystem could impact plurality and diversity of content.

The submission goes on to add: “Pre-existing regulators have the expertise to address issues arising from concentration of media ownership. In our view, concentration of media ownership is not inherently problematic for end-users, because concentration is not an automatic proxy for properly evaluating competition.”

In fact, restrictions on vertical integration have created anomalies in the broadcast and cable sector, it argued.

Alluding to some misconceptions, USIBs highlighted that while it is generally felt decline in traditional media and entertainment (M&E) segments’ revenue was attributable to technological convergence, “market data indicates that the M&E sector is growing at a healthy rate, except for the disruption caused by the pandemic”.

“Imposing any further restrictions is likely to disincentivize investment in the growing media sector, hinder the ability of companies to launch novel and additional services and platforms, and adversely affect consumer choice and viewpoint plurality,” USIBC said.

Moreover, it pointed out, determining the ‘relevant market’ is the responsibility of the Competition Commission of India (CCI), which has the statutory ability and expertise to determine the ‘relevant market’. “The CCI typically undertakes such determinations of ‘relevant market’ on a case-by-case basis and refrains from being overly prescriptive,” USIBC stated.

The trade body, boasting of Indian and American companies as members, highlighted that in the event TRAI sought to “provide a parallel framework to determine” the ‘relevant market’, there is a possibility that the same set of facts will be evaluated by different regulators under diverging frameworks, thereby “leading to uncertainty about business outcomes and an adverse impact on the ease of doing business in India”.

USIBC membership includes broadcasters, telecom operators, equipment manufacturers, systems integrators, and companies reliant on secure, trusted and efficient global communications networks.

The members also include e- commerce, sharing economy, and a diverse set of digital enterprises, as well as the technology service providers and product producers who, USIBC claimed, support and enable India’s rapidly expanding digital economy and telecom manufacturing sectors.