Four new TV channels have received licenses from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) in July 2016, reports Television Post. However, Ministry has also canceled the licenses of 10 televisions channels on the grounds that they failed to get security clearance from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
The channels that received licenses are B4U Television Network, Airtravel Enterprises India, and Goodnews Channel. Except Airtravel Enterprises India, the other two companies received licenses for the non-news category. B4U Television Network acquired licenses for B4U Plus and B4U Hitz in Hindi and English. Goodnews Channel received a license for Nambikkai Television in Tamil.
Airtravel Enterprises India has received a news uplinking license under the name ATE TV in Malayalam and English.
The companies that lost 10 TV channel licenses include Maa Television Network, STV Enterprises and Lemon Entertainment. Among the four, Maa TV and STV Enterprises had four licenses each, while Lemon Entertainment had two licenses.
Jhankar Movies and Lemon News are the channels of Lemon Entertainment that lost licenses. Maa TV, Maa Gold, Maa Movies, Maa Music are the Maa Television Network's channels that lost licenses. Under STV Enterprises, Punjab Today, STV Jammu Kashmir News, STV Haryana News, STV UP News are the channels that failed to get clearances from MHA.
The other channels/partners of the respective companies will not be impacted due to this cancellation. To say, the cancellation of MAA TV’s licenses will not create any impact on Star India, which acquired Maa’s broadcast business in February 2015.
So far, 62 television channels received their licenses in 2016. Among the valid private channels with television licenses in India, 487 are non-news channels and 399 are news channels.
