Approval of new TV channels dropped in 2009

2008 saw the maximum number of TV channels being approved by the government, data available with the information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry for the just-concluded decade show.
A record 160 channels were cleared in 2008, more than double of the number for 2009.

The start of the decade (year 2000) was rather lean, with just one channel (Aaj Tak) getting government clearance.

The following year saw a significant boom in the electronic media business, with as many as 44 channels getting approval, of which 39 were news channels and the rest in various non-news categories. Incidentally, most of the channels cleared in 2001 were regional.

The next five years (2002 to 2006) remained low-key in terms of number of channels approved, but were significant in policy-making and overall interest in the media industry. The government cleared 24 channels each in 2002 and 2003, followed by 28 in 2004, 15 in 2005 and 39 in 2006.

Even as the total number remained relatively low through these five years, news remained the flavour of the season. The number of news channels approved in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 were 16, 12, 10, 10 and 28, respectively.

2007 marked a change, with the number of non-news channels showing a marked rise again. Of the 74 channels approved during the year, 40 were newsand 34 non-news channels.

2008 bolstered the new trend, with the number of channels approved more than doubling to 160, of which 57 were news and 103 non-news channels.

In the last year of the decade, 2009, the number of channels cleared was less than half the previous year’s number at 76, of which 31 were news and 45 non-news channels.

The total number of TV channels being beamed into Indian homes is over 500 currently, and at least 100 more are in the queue.
I&B minister Ambika Soni had recently written to the chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, J S Sarma, asking whether there was a need to cap the number of channels in the context of scarce spectrum availability.

Earlier, the department of telecommunications had asked the I&B ministry to vacate some of the lower C band spectrum, that can be used by telcos.