Reprieve for ad industry

The advertisment industry will soon be exempt from press note 1 regulations. This will make mergers and acquisitions involving foreign companies simpler. Under Press Note 1, a foreign company has to get the approval of a local partner to start a parallel business in India. Now this will be no longer mandatory.

The government is pushing ahead with the proposal as it believes there are several sub-sectors of advertisement industry, which are independent of each other and have little clash of interest. The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) is now working on the proposal. The government has already exempted the information technology sector from Press Note 1.

Press note 1 norms relaxed
• Ad industry to be exempted from Press Note 1 regulations
• It will make M&As simpler
• Govt believes there is little clash of interest between sub-sectors of the industry

—Rishi Joshi