Clamping down heavily on the two-dozen broadcasters who are holding on to 100-plus TV licences without making them operational, the information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry is set to impose a Rs 1 crore per channel performance bank guarantee (PBG). Raising the stakes for companies who aspire to own television channels, the new rule clearly states ? either activate the channel or lose the deposit. If not paid, the existing media companies will lose their TV licence permission immediately.

The list of unoperational channels include those owned by both prominent national and regional broadcasters including media groups like Eenadu, Reliance Broadcasting, Sanskar TV and Focus TV, sources said. However, in order to hold on to their respective television licences, over 100 inactive channels will have to furnish PBG which collectively would come to over Rs 100 crore.

For fresh applicants too a similar financial clause has been inserted in the Uplink and Downlink guidelines. New television licence will be granted to only those media firms who furnish Rs 2 crore of PBG per news channel and Rs 1 crore for non-news channels.

Failure to launch a channel after getting the approval will result in a financial loss of upto Rs 2 crore per channel. Also, the new guideline encourages media firms to activate their channels within 12 months of obtaining permission. In that case, the entire PBG will be refunded to the permission holder. However, if the permission holder activates the channel between 13 to 24 months of getting the permission, only half of PBG will be refunded. ?If the operator does not operationalise the channel within two years, then full performance bank guarantee will be forfeited and action for revocation of the permission will also be considered,? the I&B ministry said.

As reported by FE in October last year, the I&B ministry had zeroed in on 100-odd channels who had failed to operationalise even after obtaining permission. The number is expected to have gone up since then as currently the ministry is sitting on applications for 300 channels. So far, it has given permission to over 630 channels.

Also those looking to launch news channel will now have to maintain a net-worth of Rs 15 crore for the first channel. For every additional channel, the net-worth will be Rs 5 crore. For non-news channel, the applicants will have to maintain a net-worth requirement of Rs 5 crore for the first channel and Rs 2.5 crore for each additional channel. Currently the net-worth criteria is Rs 1.5 crore for the first channel and Rs 1 crore for each additional channel. The broadcast regulator, Trai, had suggested a substantial hike in the net worth requirement (Rs 100 crore for news channel and Rs 25 crore for non-news channels). The ministry did not agree with this view.

Net worth means the excess of the book value of assets (other than fictitious assets) of an enterprise over its liabilities. It would be calculated as sum of the paid up equity and free reserves minus accumulated losses, if any, in the company, the definition states.