Star India postpones launch of 16 channels until further notice

One of the major broadcasters in the country Star India a few weeks ago published its new RIO in compliance with NTO 2.0 under which there was a scheduled launch and/or rebranding of 16 channels by January 2022, however, now the company has announced that it has deferred these launches indefinitely. 

According to a notice by Star on November 26th 2021, which is seen by DreamDTH, the company informed all distributors about postponing the launch of new channels. “This is to inform all distributor of television channels (“DPOs) that the launch of the following fifteen (15) channels and name change of one channel have been deferred till further intimation by Star,” read the letter. 

In October this year, the broadcaster had published its new Reference Interconnect Offer (RIO) with news prices and planned launch/ rebrand of various channels. This RIO was set to come into effect from December 1st onwards but later TRAI extended the deadline of NTO 2.0 implementation till April 2022. 

The channels which were going to be launched include Star Gold Romance, Star Gold Thrills, Jalsha Josh, Star Movies Select, Super Hungama, Star Gold 2 HD, Star Sports Telugu HD, Star Sports Tamil HD, Disney Channel HD, Hungama HD, Pravah Pictures HD, Pravah Pictures, Vijay Super HD, Asianet Movies HD, Star Kirano and Star Kirano HD.

Now, the RIO is expected to be enforced from April 1st 2022, the company will publish an RIO according to the updated deadline and reschedule launch of the 16 channels after April 2022. This also means that 11 existing channels- Star World, STAR World HD, Star World Premiere HD,  Baby TV HD, Bindass, Marvel HQ, UTV Movies, UTV Action, UTV HD, Star Sports 1 Marathi and Star Sports 1 Bangla, which were going to be shut down will continue for the time being.