MIB grants four and cancels 10 TV channel licences | TelevisionPost.com
MUMBAI: The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) granted four new TV channel licences in July while at the same time cancelling the licences of 10 TV channels. The ministry has granted licences to B4U Television Network, Airtravel Enterprises India and Goodnews Channel. Three of the new licences are in non-news category while one is in the news category. Except for Airtel Enterprises India, the other two companies have got non-news licences. B4U Television Network has acquired non-news uplinking licences named B4U Plus and B4U Hitz in Hindi and English. Goodnews Channel has received the licence under the name Nambikkai Television in Tamil. It currently owns and operates a non-news channel under the name Goodnews TV. Airtravel has received a news uplinking licence under the name ATE TV in Malayalam and English. Established in 1976, Airtravel Enterprises India is a leading travel and destination management company. The ministry has cancelled 10 TV channel licences of four companies. These include Maa Television Network, STV Enterprises and Lemon Entertainment. Maa TV and STV Enterprises had four licences each while Lemon Entertainment had two licences. The licences of these companies have been cancelled due to denial of security clearance by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). It must be noted here that the cancellation of Maa TV’s licences does not impact Star India, which had acquired the company’s broadcast business in February 2015. After acquiring Maa TV’s broadcast business, Star had procured fresh licences for the channels it had acquired from Maa TV Network. In 2016, the MIB has so far granted 62 TV channel licences. The pace of granting licences has slowed down in the last few months. The permitted private satellite TV channels having valid permission in India stands at 886. These include 487 non-news and current affairs channels and 399 news and current affairs channels. The MIB had granted three TV channel licences in June, including one news and two non-news licences. Gokann International Media had received non-news uplinking licence under the name Maas TV while Total Telefilms had
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