MUMBAI: For nearly a year, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has been stingy in handing out licences to channels. But in July, four new channels got permissions and none were cancelled.

Sony Marathi, the non-news channel, got the permission on 16 July for downlinking. Times Network’s news channels, Times Now and ET Now, got permission for both uplink and downlink on 18 July under English/Hindi and all remaining Indian scheduled languages.

Vision Corporations has got permission for launching a new channel Indian Fashion TV on 12 July, which will have content on fashion films, reality shows related to fashion and lifestyle and TV serials. Sources told Indiantelevision.com that the channel will launch in a month’s time.

The 14 licenses which were cancelled earlier by MIB due to security denial by Ministry of Home Affairs are still now under stay order from the court.

After cancelling permission to 239 channels, the number of private satellite TV channels having valid permission in India stands at 868 as on 31 July 2018. While 484 channels are non-news channels, the rest i.e., 384 are news channels.

Of the 868 permitted private satellite channels, TV channels permitted for uplink from India and also to downlink into India remains the same at 766 among which 364 are news channels and 402 are non-news channels. 11 non-news channels and five news channels are permitted for uplink from India but not downlink into the country. 86 TV channels are uplinked from abroad which only have downlinking permission in India. This category includes 15 news and 71 non-news channels.