MUMBAI: There are 269 pay TV channels in
the country out of 885 channels permitted by the Ministry of
Information & Broadcasting (MIB), according to data available till
30 April.
“Presently, 885 satellite TV channels
are permitted by the ministry under the uplinking/downlinking
guidelines,” Minister of State in the MIB Col Rajyavardhan Rathore said
in the Lok Sabha.
“Out of these, 269 channels have been
reported as pay channels by the broadcasters to the Telecom Regulatory
Authority of India (TRAI),” he added.
Rathore further stated that Prasar
Bharati’s free-to-air (FTA) direct-to-home (DTH) platform Freedish is
carrying 80 channels, which is expected to go up to 250 channels in 12th
Plan scheme.
Prasar Bharati, he stated, has informed
that All India Radio (AIR) has 23 FTA channels on Freedish. The
pubcaster has proposed to start 16 more FTA channels on the DTH
platform.
In response to another question, Rathore
ruled out putting a cap on the number of TV channels in the country. He
stated that in 2011 the MIB had accepted TRAI’s recommendations dated
22 July 2010 that no cap be placed on the number of satellite
broadcasting channels to be downlinked for viewing in India or to be
uplinked from India.
The ministry, Rathore said, had also
accepted TRAI’s recommendation to set a higher net worth criteria for
applicant companies intending to operate news as well as non-news TV
channels. It had also recommended introducing experience clause for top
executives of such broadcaster companies.
The Uplinking and Downlinking Guidelines
were amended with the approval of the Cabinet after carrying out due
consultation with other ministries/departments.
Source: Televisionpost.com
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