Growth in the broadcasting industry is hampered by the absence of a cohesive national policy and healthy competition within the industry, a roundtable was told on Tuesday.

"We are considering a comprehensive policy, although the process will take time as we are now only in the preliminary stage," said information minister Abul Kalam Azad at the roundtable organised by the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute at their office.

BEI president Farooq Sobhan said opening up terrestrial transmission opportunities to the private sector was essential to create a climate of healthy competition. "The BBC has to compete with other channels in the UK, which assures quality from the public sector entity," said Sobhan. He said such a move would also promote regional and economic development. "There are plenty of successful examples of community radio stations fostering the development process," he said.

Sobhan, a former diplomat, said it was also important to create a "coherent and transparent" broadcasting policy regarding licensing issues, which was absent from existing policy. "A policy that covers all broadcast media is essential, rather than different laws for different media, which makes monitoring difficult, "he said.

Media specialist Farhana Afroz, in her keynote presentation, backed broadcasting regulations that included provisions to uphold Bangladeshi culture, heritage and values. "But other issues such as protecting consumer rights and taking action against misleading news should be also be addressed in the policy," Afroz said.

Academic Masud Chowdhury, however, highlighted the risk of limiting freedom of the press in the name of regulations and policies: "As frequently occurs in under-developed and developing nations." "Bangladesh now has a relatively free press, if not a totally free one," said Chowdhury.