MUMBAI: The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) is getting strict on giving channel licences, even cancelling some. 14 channels, whose licence was cancelled by the MIB due to security denial by Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), challenged the decision and have got a stay order from the High Court.

Out of these fourteen channels, twelve channels are news channels and two are non-news channels. Mahua Media Private Limited, Mavis Satcom Limited, STV Enterprises Limited, Alliance Broadcasting Private Limited are the concerned parties.

After cancelling permission to 236 channels, the number of private satellite TV channels having valid permission in India stands at 867 as on 30 June 2018. While 384 channels are news channels, the rest i.e. 483 are non-news channels.

According to earlier statistics, the total number of private satellite and pay TV channels stood at 875 as on 28 February, 2018. In the last one year, there has been a dearth of licences being handed out. The earlier part of 2018 saw the addition of just two channels namely Discovery Jeet HD and DSport HD.

Of the 867 permitted private satellite channels, TV channels permitted for uplink from India and also to downlink into India are 766 among which 364 are news channels and 402 are non-news channels. Five news and eleven non-news channel are permitted for uplink from India but not downlink into the country. 85 TV channels are uplinked from abroad which only have downlinking permission in India. This category includes 15 news and 70 non-news channel.