New Delhi : The Information and Broadcasting Ministry (MIB) issued an update on the status of Licensed Private Satellite Television Channels in India with the details of three more new channels for which the Licence have been issued recently.
The ministries update states that the number of Permitted Private Satellite Television Channels in India is 798. Out of which 397 are News and Current Affairs Channels in India. The remaining 401 Channels are Non-News and Current Affairs Channels with multiple genres program specification.
Number of television channels permitted for uplink and downlink from India come to 671, out of which 375 are news channels and 296 are non-news channels. It is mandatory for News Channels operating in Indian soil to have an Indian Owner with Majority stakes to acquire uplink rights as per the MIB policy. Star News became ABP News after the exit of NDTV in 2003 due to this policy only. However, there is no such restrictions for acquiring downlink rights.
Television channels permitted to uplink from India but not permitted to downlink from India are 34 in number. Out of these 34, six are news channels and 28 are non news channels.
Channels that are uplinked from abroad and are permitted to only downlink into India are 93, they are mostly foreign channels. This consists of 16 news channels and 77 non news channels.
Three new channels have been permitted. First would be the non-news God Media owned Peace of Mind. The other two are for Ananda Bazar Patrika Group that owns “ABP News” which include a Punjabi News channel by ABP named ABP Sanjha.
