204 TV channels closed in five years: Central Government

Ground Report | New Delhi: 204 TV channels closed; Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur, in response to a question asked in the Rajya Sabha, said that 204 TV channels have been closed in the last five years. The operation of these channels has happened due to the non-fulfillment of various conditions.

Anurag Thakur said that this year in 2020-21, 22 channels have been approved for license by the ministry. Along with this, the ministry has given licenses to 60 TV channels in the year 2016-17, 34 in the year 2017-18, 56 in the year 2018-19, and 50 in the year 2019-20.

Less than half the new channels are open in 2020-21 as compared to the year 2019-20. He said, under the 'Uplinking and Downlinking Guidelines 2011', 916 private satellite TV channels have been approved by the government so far.

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204 TV channels closed

Anurag Thakur said that between 2016 and 2020, the government took action in 128 cases of program code violations by TV channels.

In response to another question, he said that since the year 2017-18, 12805 applications have been received by RNI (Registration of Newspapers of India).

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Responding to the question of payment made in lieu of advertisements to news institutions, he said that, it is an ongoing process. News institutions are paid for advertising. Along with this, the Ministry of Information also keeps on doing follow-ups with all the ministries.

An RTI related to the payment of dues of news institutions, it was revealed that the Central Government has not paid Rs 147 crore for the advertisement given in the newspapers. In which the 2004 advertisement bill is also pending with the Directorate of Visual Publicity (DAVP).

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