ITV

Tag: Ministry of Home Affairs

  • Ministry of Home Affairs gives security clearance lifeline

    Ministry of Home Affairs gives security clearance lifeline

    MUMBAI: In a positive move, news broadcasters got a new lease on life when the Indian Home Ministry extended the current three year term of security clearance given to broadcasters to cover the entire duration of the channel’s licence. Currently, licences given to TV channels are for 10 years.

    According to a PTI report, the Home Ministry also mentioned to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) that this was a temporary measure and the issue will be relooked by a committee of secretaries that will then give its final recommendations.

    This comes as a major relief for broadcasters who had been stumped suddely last year when it came to be known that security licences
    given to companies running channels were only valid for three years.
     

    News broadcasters approached the MIB through the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) then to consider the extension of the clearance to 10 years which then wrote to the Home Ministry.
     

    So for now channels can be rest assured that their security clearances will be ‘co-terminus’  with the channel licence.

     

    However, existing companies will have to seek approval from the Home Ministry  if they want to start a new channel or add a new director to the board.
     

  • News channels want longer security clearance period: Tewari

    News channels want longer security clearance period: Tewari

    Mumbai: News broadcasters have approached the ministry of information and broadcasting to increase the number of years they get security clearance for the channels they run. This was revealed by I&B minister Manish Tewari today in the Lok Sabha in reply to a question, says a Press Trust of India report.

     

    Current regulations put the security clearance given to a company and its directors validity period at three years, and the News Broadcasters Association has made a representation to the I&B ministry to extend it as it makes things difficult for them, disclosed Tewari.

     

    Adding to the news broadcasters woes is the Ministry of Home Affairs’ (MHA) decision that a media company should apply for fresh clearances for a new channel even if the firm has got security permissions earlier. Permissions for uplinking and downlinking of channels are issued for 10 years, and hence this has created an anomalous situation.

  • Licensed Indian channels drop to 784

    Licensed Indian channels drop to 784

    MUMBAI: It has come under flak in the past for being rather liberal in issuing licences to TV broadcasters. But the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has been cracking down on this front over the past year or so.

     

    And this is evident from the list of permitted private satellite TV channels which the MIB released on 2 December 2013. According to the list, there are 784 channels which have been allowed to beam over India.

     

    The MIB’s 2012 official list had 848 channels when it was released on 20 December 2012. That means around 64 licences have been revoked in the past year.

     

    After the Sarada Group scam last year, the MIB had sent notices to various companies asking for details about their shareholdings and structure. It then started the process of cancelling licences based on their response.

     

    Among the reasons that it gave for the revocation figured: companies had not started broadcasting even a year after being issued a licence and shareholding patterns and directors were changed without the ministry being informed.

     

    The MIB has also gone easy on issuing new licences to potential broadcasters. Some 50 applications are pending with it, according to industry officials.

     

    The files for licence clearances have piled up because several representative meetings between the MIB and the Ministry of Home Affairs have been postponed over the past two months, point out industry executives.

     

    A highly-placed industry source reveals: “A meeting was supposed to happen last week and this week as well, but it failed to take place.”

     

    Among some of the channels which are awaiting MIB’s nod include: Epic TV, Al Arabiya News, Maha Movie, Blue TV etc.

     

    Another source adds: “State elections and general elections have been a priority for the government. We, as an industry, are worried and feel that licenses are not on its priority list.”