NEW DELHI: Earlier today, PTI reported that the Information and Broadcasting Ministry (I&B) had issued showcause notices to three private direct to home (DTH) operators for not showing all the 24 mandatory Doordarshan channels to their subscribers.

When Indiantelevision.com contacted the ministry, a source in the ministry confirmed that the three DTH operators are Tata Sky, Reliance Big TV, and Sun Direct.

According to the rules relating to mandatory telecast, all DTH operators are expected to provide the 24 DD channels to their subscribers, irrespective of any bouquets or a la-carte channels being subscribed by them. 

A ministry source, revealing the names of the operators, said it had come to the notice of the ministry that some DTH operators were either not showing all the mandatory channels or were not showing them as primary channels. The operators have therefore been told to showcause why action should not be taken against them.

It was noticed that while one of the DTH service providers was beaming only eight of the mandatory 24 channels, another was showing 17 channels, a source said. The third company which has been given the showcause notice was carrying only 18 channels. 

According to the norms, DTH operators should show the mandatory 24 channels alongside other private channels of the same genre. 

The channels which cable operators must show are DD National, DD News, DD Bharati, DD Urdu, DD Sports, DD India, DD Kashir, DD Punjabi, DD Girnar, DD Sahyadri, DD Saptagiri, DD Malayalam, DD Podhigai, DD Chandana, DD Bangla, DD North East, DD Bihar, DD Uttar Pradesh, DD Rajasthan, DD Madhya Pradesh, DD Oriya, Gyan Darshan, Lok Sabha TV and Rajya Sabha TV.