Digital Broadcast Vendors News reported that in Colombo CBNSat Cable TV service was closed by the Sri Lankan police two weeks ago on instructions from the authorities - presumably the Ministry of the Media. The pretext was they were operating without a proper license.
Yesterday,June 21, executives of CBNSat were in court. But the main case has been postponed until July 28.
Sri Lanka is supposedly a democracy but it occurs to me that if a company has operated successfully for 8 years and is then closed down without notice, what were the authorities doing the whole period?
A good investigative reporter may well have a field day with what he/ she may uncover. That perhaps the greatest beneficiaries of CBNSat demise will be the commercial terrestrial stations broadcasting free- to-air?
Thinking aloud, I would also summise that authorities also appear to be ignoring the fact that CBSat has a strong subscriber base and it is those people who are pretty ticked off by the whole episode. The timing of the move by the Media Ministry is particularly irksome. A lot of World Cup and International Cricket coverage are blacked out by the stopping of CBNSat transmissions.
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