What downturn? 97 apply to run news channels
By IANSFriday, February 27, 2009
NEW DELHI - The economic downturn doesn’t seem to have dampened the enthusiasm of India’s media entrepreneurs as applications of 97 private satellite TV news channels are being scrutinised by the information and broadcasting industry.
‘As on date, applications of 97 private satellite news and current affairs TV channels and 85 private satellite non news and current affairs TV channels are at various stages of scrutiny,’ Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Anand Sharma told the Rajya Sabha Thursday.
‘These applications are being processed in accordance with the existing uplinking and downlinking guidelines,’ Sharma said in response to a question in parliament’s upper house.
The total number of news and current affairs TV channels in the country is 215 and the number of non-news and current affairs TV channels is 233, Sharma informed.
When asked about the contentious code for the electronic media, Sharma also reiterated that any decision on content regulation would be taken up for finalisation only after the widest possible consultations with all concerned stakeholders and eliciting different points of view on the proposed changes.
No timeframe has been fixed for the same, he said.
