I&B ministry clears application for 75 new television channels

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Thomas Kurien

20 May, 2011

The Indian Information and Broadcasting Ministry has given approval for 75 new television channels to come up in the country. The clearance was given today by Ambika Soni, the Minister for..

SOME OF the major television broadcasters that have received the go-ahead from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting for their new television channels include Star India, ZEE Entertainment, Discovery Communications, UTV Entertainment, Fox Channels, and ESPN. The clearance for the 75 new television channels was given for the first time after October 2009.

The permission to go to air has been given to Discovery communication for Discovery Kids, Investigation Discovery, Home and Health, 3D Net, and Military channels; UTV has been given a go-ahead for a regional channel, a music channel, and a comedy channel. One of the largest television groups in the country Zee was provided clearance for 24×7 home shopping, and the group will also launch many regional channels in High Definition.

Nat Geo Adventure and Nat Geo Wild are channels that Fox Channels will launch after its application was approved by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

There's ESPN, which will launch Star Cricket in High Definition, while Star India has got permission for uplinking new television channel Star Bengali.

Apart from these broadcasting entities, many other television channels from smaller broadcasters are also in the list of 75 channels approved by the ministry.

The television industry in India is already highly fragmented and competitive. About 600 channels already operate in the country and the addition of 75 more channels is going to intensify competition for viewership. At the same time, for the viewer, the additional 75 channels will widen entertainment options.

In 2009 the ministry stopped providing clearance for the uplink and downlink channels in India. At that time the ministry had asked the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to give its opinion on giving permission to new television channels, and for some time there was an alleged "freeze", now denied by the ministry, on new applications to permit broadcasters to uplink and downlink in India.

While referring the matter to Trai, the Information and Broadcasting ministry had requested Trai to provide its report on spectrum availability, and the issue of assessing the net-worth of the channels. But by the mid of 2009, the ministry again started clearing applications, and in October 2009 gave television licenses to about 50 television channels.