MUMBAI: The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting ( MIB) granted four TV channel licences in May after failing to grant a single one in April.
ZEEL got two licences, namely Zee Kannada HD and Zee Telugu HD. Bengaluru-based Writemen Media, which owns and operates Kannada news and music channels, got another licence for Public Comedy.
Head-end and set-top box (STB) manufacturer Catvision, which already distributes French channels TV5 Monde and France 24, has got permission to downlink English news channel Euronews in India.
The ministry did not grant a single licence in April. In March, the ministry had granted six licences including Arnab Goswami’s Republic TV, Sony Aath, Cartoon Network HD, Tunes 6 Music, Surya Samachar and Surya Sagar Entertainment.
As on 31 May, the MIB granted 1,071 licences, including 189 cancelled licences. Thus, there are currently 882 permitted TV channel licences in the country, including 391 news channels and 491 non-news channels.
Until 31 March, the MIB had granted permission to 1,067 TV channels including 179 cancelled permissions. The total TV channel licences stood at 888 including 392 news and 496 non-news licences.
The ministry has permitted 773 TV channels (369 news+404 non-news) for uplink from India as well as to downlink into India, while 91 TV channels (16 news+75 non-news) have permission to only downlink into India. A total of 18 TV channels (6 news+12 non-news) have been given only uplinking permission.
The ministry had issued three licences in January while February saw four licences being granted.
In January, the MIB had granted licences to Asianet Communciations, VRL Media and Parshavnath Medias for Star Suvarna HD, Dighvijay TV and Jai Paras TV.
It had awarded four TV channel licences in February to MSM Worldwide Factual Media, AETN18 Media and Shreya Broadcasting.
These included Sony BBC Earth, Sony BBC Earth HD, History TV18 HD and TV5 News.
MIB grants four TV channel licences in May; no licence granted in April | TelevisionPost.com