No TV station can air commercially sponsored news, High Court rules

The High Court has ordered the television stations of Bangladesh to stop broadcasting news sponsored by commercial entities.

The TV channels can air news, but they cannot use the name of any organisation for the programme, lawyer Masud Ahmed Sayeed told the media after the High Court passed the orders on Tuesday.

The orders will take effect on Sept 1, according to Sayeed, who argued for a writ petitioner seeking the ban on commercialisation of news show names.

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The orders do not mean that the TV stations cannot air advertisements between breaks, he clarified. 

“The sponsor can put editorial control on news. It is possible the firms decide what the TV stations say,” the lawyer said.

Such practice is against the constitution and may create distrust among the viewers over transparency.

The bench of Justice Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury and Justice Sashanka Shekhar Sarkar passed the orders.

Deputy Attorney General Taposh Kumar Biswas and Assistant Attorney General Abonti Nurul represented the state while Md Asaduzzaman and Anisul Hasan for the TV stations. Sheikh Ahsan Ali and Nasrin Akter assisted Sayeed at the hearings.

The High Court on Oct 17, 2011 issued a set of rules asking why the authorities should not take measures for the withdrawal of commercial sponsorship of TV news after initial hearing of a public interest litigation filed by MA Matin, a former schoolteacher.

After the death of Matin in 2015, businessman Faruq Md Hasib joined the legal battle as the petitioner.