Republic TV amongst six channels to receive license by MIB in March 

The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) has granted licences to six television channels in the month of March, of which four were non-news and two were news. Four licences were for uplinking while two were for downlinking.

(MIB) has granted uplinking license to Arnab Goswami’s much awaited news channel, Republic TV. The license has been permitted for English and Hindi languages under the company name ARG Outlier Media Pvt. Ltd on 1st March 2017.Arnab has constantly been in the news and aggressively active on social media in the run-up ever since he announced his venture Republic TV in December last year.

Republic TV will launch with eight brands eight brands that have decided to associate with the upcoming television channel. The ‘founding partners’ are - Vivo, Jio Digital Life, Renault, Hike, Ola, Star India, Yes Bank and Microsoft.

Sony Pictures Networks India subsidiary Bangla Entertainment has been granted a downlinking license for Sony Aaah in Bangla and other Indian languages. 

Movements Digital India has received an uplinking licence to launch music channel Tunes 6 Music in Hindi, Tamil and all other regional languages.

Turner International  which owns two standard definition kids channel - Pogo and Cartoon Network has received a downlinking licence to launch Cartoon Network HD. The Cartoon Network HD licence is for English and in due course Hindi. 

Surya Processed Food received two uplinking licences, one for Surya Samachar which has a news licence and one non news license for Surya Sagar Entertainment. The issued licences are for English, Hindi and other Indian scheduled languages.

As per the latest ‘status of permitted satellite TV channels in India’, by the MIB, 888 private satellite TV channels in India have the permission as on March 2017. Of these, 392 are news and current affairs channels as 496 are non-news and current affairs channels.