I&B Ministry
MIB & the business of TV channel licensing in 2024
MUMBAI: The Indian government has rejected more than half the number of licence applications it has approved in 2024. This was revealed by the information & broadcasting minister of state L. Murugan in the Rajya Sabha on 20 December 2024. This was in response to a question posed in the upper house of parliament.
According to him,the I&B ministry rejected 13 applications for channel licences in 2024, the highest number in the past five years. It has approved 22 applications for licences and renewed 34 of them in 2024.
The number of channel licence applications approved in 2024 was twice the number that were given the green light in 2023. .
2024 is also the year when the MIB cancelled the least number of TV channels in the past five years. The figure for 2024 is only one, while in 2021 it cancelled 24 TV licences.
Since, 2020 the government has rejected 34 applications for channel licences, of which 13 are accounted for by the rejections in 2024. 110 new channel licence applications have been approved since 2020, while 269 channel licence renewal applications were approved.
The list of channel licence applications approved, renewed, rejected and cancelled. as given by L. Murugan in the Rajya Sabha is in the table below::
I&B Ministry
Prasar Bharati sets EPG standards for DD Free Dish platform
New specs define 7-day guide, LCN mapping, and device compatibility.
MUMBAI: Your TV guide just got a backstage pass structured, scheduled, and far more in sync. Prasar Bharati has released detailed technical specifications for Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) services on DD Free Dish, laying down a standardised framework for how channels and programme information are organised and delivered. At the core of the update is a defined EPG data structure, covering genre-based categorisation, scheduling formats, and Logical Channel Numbering (LCN). The aim is simple: make navigation less guesswork and more guided experience across the platform’s over 40 million households.
The specifications also introduce a seven-day programme guide window for each channel, alongside clear rules for channel grouping and LCN mapping effectively deciding not just what you watch, but how easily you find it.
On the technical front, the document outlines requirements for Program Specific Information (PSI) and Service Information (SI), including descriptor usage across tables such as PAT, BAT and NIT. It further details service lists and network linkage parameters, giving OEMs and developers a clearer blueprint for integration.
Importantly, the framework is designed to work seamlessly with television sets equipped with in-built satellite tuners, enabling users to access DD Free Dish directly without additional hardware, an incremental but meaningful step towards simplifying access.
The platform will continue to operate on GSAT-15 transponders, using MPEG-4 compression and DVB-S2 transmission standards, ensuring continuity even as the interface evolves.
While largely technical, the move signals a broader push towards standardisation and user-friendly discovery in India’s free-to-air ecosystem because sometimes, the real upgrade isn’t what’s on screen, but how easily you get there.
