1,159 MSOs licenses cancelled; only 843 registered with I&B Ministry as of Feb'25
According to the latest data from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, as of February 28, 2025, 114 Multi-system operators (MSOs) applications have been cancelled/rejected and 1045 MSOs registrations have been surrendered/expired.
ADVERTISEMENT
Following the government crackdown on the multi-system operator (MSO) industry, there has been a drop in the number of registered MSOs. According to the latest data from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, as of February 28, 2025, there are a total of 843 registered MSOs.
As per the list, up until February, over 114 MSOs applications have been cancelled/rejected or closed by the Ministry and over 1045 MSOs registrations have been surrendered/expired or cancelled by the Ministry, due to non-compliance in the last 10 years.
In August 2024, there were over 850 registered MSOs and a year before that, the number stood at 998.
One of the terms and conditions of the MSO registration is that MSOs shall comply with the provisions of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act. 1995, and the Rules made there under, as amended and adhered to all the terms and conditions of the registration. Failing to do so, the permission granted is liable to be cancelled or suspended. MSOs are also required to submit a list of their subscribers and other details as per the requests made by the Ministry from time to time.
Further, according to Regulation 15(1) of the Interconnection Regulations, 2017, it is mandatory for every distributor of channels to conduct an audit of their system once in a calendar year; if they fail to do so, they are marked as 'non-compliant'. Following which, MSOs have to provide the requisite information or make any reference to the Ministry regarding their compliance status. In absence of the same, in exercise of powers conferred under Section 4(7) of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995, the MSO registrations of the scheduled MSOs are cancelled with immediate effect.
In the past, via one of its advisories, the Ministry had stated that all MSOs who provide their own programming service to their own subscribers directly or through one or multiple Local Cable Operators must register to the platform services.
