The head of Indonesia’s broadcasting regulatory body has called for the creation of a single agency tasked with overseeing the vast and rapidly changing industry. “The regulations and regulators are distributed everywhere,” Indonesian Broadcasting Commission chairman Sasa Djuarsa Sendjaja said. “The government formed different independent bodies with overlapping roles.”
The commission’s 2008 annual report lists at least five institutions with similar regulatory roles in the broadcasting industry. In addition to the broadcasting commission, the country has the Press Council, the film censorship body, Lembaga Sensor Film, the Indonesian Telecommunications Regulatory Body (BRTI) and the Public Information Commission.
But with the pace of development in information and communication technology, Mr Sasa said a new era of convergence — where people access different content through a single device such as a cellphone — required a new regulatory approach. It is better to converge all these independent bodies into one, with one set of regulations,” Mr Sasa said, adding that the various laws governing these institutions could be compiled into a single law on communication that would oversee print media, broadcasting, telecommunications and film.
(Source: Jakarta Globe)
