MSO licences plunge to 55 as MIB cancels over 1,000 registrations in two years

India’s cable television distribution landscape continues to undergo rapid consolidation, with the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) significantly stepping up action against inactive and non-compliant Multi-System Operators (MSOs) over the past two years. Data from the Ministry’s Annual Reports for 2023–24 and 2024–25 point to a sustained regulatory push that has sharply reduced the number of licensed MSOs, even as fresh registrations remain limited.

In 2023–24, the Ministry granted 21 new MSO registrations, taking the cumulative number of registrations till March 2024 to 880. However, this marginal addition was overshadowed by a sweeping clean-up exercise, with the Ministry cancelling the registrations of 883 MSOs during the year.

The scale of cancellations exceeded the total active base, indicating the removal of legacy, dormant and duplicate registrations that had accumulated over time. According to the Ministry, many of these MSOs had failed to carry out mandatory system audits, raising concerns over the integrity of their networks, piracy of broadcast signals and suppression of subscriber numbers

The consolidation trend continued into 2024–25, albeit with lower absolute numbers reflecting a narrower remaining base. During the year, the Ministry granted 24 fresh MSO registrations, while 180 MSO licences were cancelled. As of December 31, 2024, the total number of valid MSO registrations stood at 55, underscoring the sharp contraction of the sector following sustained enforcement action.

As of November 30, 2025, the total number of registered MSOs stood at 787, down from 818 in October, a number that had remained close to unchanged since August.

Registered entities include Vortex Entertainment, Mohanty & Mohanty Vision Media, Sri Balaji Cable Network, Kohinoor Cable Network, Citynet Infra, Lucky Cable Network, Dabas Cable Cartel and Hinduja Global Solution, among others. The Ministry has also processed a series of new applications.

As of November 30, 2025 114 MSO applications have been cancelled, rejected, or closed. Operators such as SITI Digital Homecast, Narwana Green City, ACN Digicom India, Fastway North Star Cable Network and GK Communications feature on this list.

Officials attributed the continued decline to a “systematic action” against operators that were either inactive or non-compliant with regulatory norms, particularly those that failed to undertake audits of their digital addressable systems. Such operators, the Ministry noted, were more vulnerable to content piracy and under-reporting of subscriber bases, practices that have long distorted revenue flows in the cable television ecosystem.

The regulatory tightening coincided with structural reforms in the cable sector. Amendments to the Cable Television Networks Rules in September 2023 introduced provisions for renewal of MSO registrations, a gap that previously allowed licences to remain on record indefinitely without periodic compliance checks. The changes were based on recommendations from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and are aimed at ensuring ongoing regulatory oversight rather than one-time approvals.

At the same time, the Ministry operationalised new rules allowing cable operators to offer last-mile internet connectivity, a move expected to encourage viable MSOs to diversify revenue streams while pushing weaker, non-compliant players out of the system. The rollout of the Broadcast Seva portal as a single-window digital interface has further strengthened monitoring, enabling closer scrutiny of registrations, payments and compliance filings.

Industry experts say the sharp fall in the number of licensed MSOs reflects a long-overdue correction in a sector that had been weighed down by fragmentation and opaque operations. While the steep cancellations in 2023–24 represented a clean-up of the legacy base, the continued pruning in 2024–25 suggests that enforcement remains ongoing rather than episodic.

The Ministry’s data indicates that the cable distribution sector is now moving towards a smaller but more compliant universe of MSOs, aligned with the government’s broader push for digitisation, transparency and anti-piracy enforcement. Whether the sharp contraction stabilises in the coming years will depend on how quickly remaining operators adapt to stricter audit, renewal and reporting requirements under the revised regulatory framework.