The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) in the few days has approved 16 new Television channel licenses. The 16 new licenses have been given to 2 companies IN10 Media Pvt Ltd and Eenadu Television Pvt Ltd.
IN10 Media has been granted two new licenses namely Epic Plus and Ishara TV. Both the licenses were granted on 27th February 2020. Both are non-news channels and could likely be Free to Air (FTA) Standard Definition (SD) channels.
Eenadu Television Pvt Ltd, on the other hand, has been permitted 14 new licenses. The broadcaster is likely to launch its own Kids channels in many languages. ETV has been permitted the license for ETV Bal Bharat English, ETV Bal Bharat HD, ETV Bal Bharat Gujarati, ETV Bal Bharat Kannada, ETV Bal Bharat Marathi, ETV Bal Bharat Punjabi, ETV Bal Bharat Tamil, ETV Bal Bharat Telugu, ETV Bal Bharat Malayalam, ETV Balya Bharat Assamese, ETV Balya Bharat Bangla, and ETV Balya Bharat Odia.
The grant of 16 new licenses has increased the number of permitted Satellite TV channels from 918 to 925 at the end of February 2020. The Ministry according to the database didn’t issue any license during January 2020.
