MIB mulls changes in guidelines for Uplinking & Downlinking of TV channels

The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) has decided to seek the views/ comments of stakeholders for suggesting changes in the policy guidelines for Uplinking & Downlinking of TV channels from India. These guidelines were last revised in 2011. 

Accordingly, MIB has invited News Broadcasters Association (NBA), Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), all teleport operators and all news agencies of electronic media to its Shastri Bhavan, New Delhi office on June 6, 2019 at 3 pm.

Read More: No news content on Non-news channels, directs MIB after Zee News tweet

The MIB notified the “Guidelines for Uplinking from India” in July 2000. This was followed by “Guidelines for Uplinking of News and Current Affairs TV Channels from India” in March 2003, which were amended in August 2003. Further followed by “Guidelines for use of SNG/DSNGs” in May 2003 and addendum dated 1.4.2005 to the Uplinking guidelines. The Government had, on October 20, 2005, further amended these Guidelines, which came into effect from December 2, 2005. On October 7, 2011, these guidelines were further amended.

The Uplinking & Downlinking guidelines were in the news recently when MIB in its letter dated May 22, 2019 directed all TV channels to strictly ensure that there is no violation of its Guidelines that clearly demarcates the News and Non-news categories. The directive came on the back of news reports of the Zee network planning to provide coverage of the Counting Day on Zee TV (a GEC) and Zee ETC (a Bollywood-centric channel), along with Zee News.