General elections mean good news for broadcasting industry. With Lok Sabha polls scheduled for next year about 75 news channels await clearance from the information and broadcasting ministry. The country already has about 430 news channels operational. It is understood that India has one of the largest number of operational news and current affairs channels in the world.
Sources stated that currently about 150 channels are awaiting clearance from the ministry. Amongst those awaiting clearance almost half are news and current affairs channels.
The news channels which have applied for clearance have sought permission for operations in English, Hindi and several regional languages.
Currently, there are about 850 channels operational in the country. Of these, news and current affairs channels make up total of about 430 which includes 35 channels of the national broadcaster, Doordarshan.
Anyone who wants to start a channel in the country needs to seek the requisite uplinking and downlinking permission from the I&B ministry.
With an exponential growth in number of operational channels, in an effort to restrict the entry of non serious players, the I&B ministry had decided to hike the requisite net worth requirement for new entrants.
Sources stated that the net worth requirement has been hiked to `20 crores for news channels while non news channels require net worth of `5 crores. Sources stated that the Trai had recommended a net worth of `100 crores.