Pak to fully ban Indian TV content from Friday

Pakistan’s media regulatory authority on Wednesday decided to enforce a blanket ban on all Indian TV and radio content from Friday and warned that the licences of those found guilty of violating the order would be suspended. The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) has decided to ban airing of Indian content from October 21 at the request of the federal government, it said.

“The ban will come into effect at 3 pm on October 21, and radio and television stations which violate the ban will have their licences suspended without a prior show-cause notice,” the PEMRA said in a statement.

The ban extends to all Indian content on cable and radio being aired in Pakistan. The authority also decided to cancel one-sided rights given to Indian media by the government of former dictator Pervez Musharraf in 2006.

PEMRA has already decided to get tough with Indian content, after complaints that most of the local channels were using more than five per cent foreign contents as allowed by it.

On August 31, the regulator had said that strict action would be taken against the channels airing foreign content more than the prescribed limit and traders selling illegal DTH sets. The decision was implemented from October 16 as PEMRA launched a crackdown on channels using foreign contents illegally.