MUMBAI: Guwahahti-based Yash TV Entertainment has clarified that its channel Pratidin Time is not the one which has been asked to go off the air on 9 November by the information & Broadcasting ministry (MIB) for gross violations of the content code.

Indiantelevision.com received an email message from Pratidin Time general manager Gaurav Goswami saying that "both channels are running successful on air as can be seen on the MIB list. But it is News Time Assam which has met with the MIB disapproval."

The facts now: Yash TV Entertainment is a part of the Pratidin group founder Jayanta Baruah and his family, which own Assamese daily Asomiya Pratidin, Sadin, a weekly tabloid and a women's monthly magazine Nandini.

News Time Assam is actually owned by the Kolkata-based Brand Value Communications but is run by the Guwahati-based UB Photo Group. The channel's content producer Utpal Baruah told The Hindustan Times that the channel would be switched off on 9 November. “The channel has not being doing well. Hopefully, the free publicity will help us bring in investors,” he told the newspaper.

Utpal Baruah clarified that the Pratidin group had acquired the assets of News Time Assam last year, which later went on to launch its own channel Pratidin Time. However, the channel licence continued to be with Brand Value Communications, which later leased it to him.

Baruah additionally told The Hindustan Times that while the channel had been hauled up for three violations one of the violations was under the watch of the Pratidin group and the I&B punishment relates to that period.

An Assam based media observer clarified that "the confusion has arisen because Pratidin Time had on its Twitter and Wikipedia pages announced that News Time Assam was being renamed as Pratidiin Time. When the deal did not go through, corrections were not issued to all concerned, hence the misunderstanding that it was Pratidin Time which was being given correctional punishment by the MIB."