Kathmandu, 29 August

The House of Representatives today endorsed the Advertisement (Regulation) Bill which has the provision of clean feed policy for foreign TV channels broadcast in Nepal.

With the implementation of clean feed policy, foreign TV channels broadcast in Nepal will have no foreign ads in their programmes.

However, the bill states that the foreign TV channels which are broadcast in the country with foreign ads at present will come under the policy after a year.

The bill was endorsed by the National Assembly on March 30 and forwarded to the Lower House. After endorsement of the bill, it will again be sent to the NA with suggestions. From the NA the bill will be sent to the President’s Office for authentication. The bill says that the Advertisement Board will distribute government advertisements to media houses proportionally.

The bill also states that publishers and owners of media outlets should be held responsible for the contents of advertisement. Section 25 (2) of the bill proposes up to one year jail and up to Rs 10,000 in fine or both for media publishers and owners of broadcast companies if their media is found publishing any ‘offensive’ advertisement.

Section 5 of the bill states that publication or broadcast of advertisements that include false information or banned content, that affect fair competition in products and services, expose information that is confidential by law, make comparisons between goods, products and services, or fall foul regarding various other issues could land the owner of the offending media in jail.