Thursday, May 11, 2006

Indian Downlink Deadline Past

New Delhi --- The Government of India set a May 11 deadline for submission of downlinking TV channels under new guidelines that stipulate any channel beaming into India had to have a registered office in the country. Simply stated this means India will control content and require taxes to be paid on income derived in the country.

An Information and Broadcasting Ministry official is reported to have said that Star Group, Sony, Zee, Discorvery, Anil Planet, Cartoon Network, CNN, Pogo, MTV, Channel V, Toon Disney, Hallmark, HBO, Ten Sports and Channel News Asia were among 41 TV channels making their submissions on time. Outstanding 48 hours ahead of the deadline were Fashion TV, ESPN-Star and BBC World.

Around one hundred channels were expected to apply as there are that many operational currently.

The penalty of failure to submit will mean that a channel could not be carried on the cable networks across the country; the offending channel could be blacked out and continual failure will result in more serious offences.

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