NEW DELHI: The total number of private television channels has risen to 899, with nine new television channels cleared in December 2016.

The new channels are: Living Entertainment Enterprises Pvt. Ltd’s general entertainment channels Living Flavourz (GEC), Living Travelz (GEC), Living Rootz, and Z Living; Shop CJ Network Pvt. Ltd’s shopping channels Shop CJ Tamil and Shop CJ Telugu; Kerala Communicators Cable Ltd’s GEC Kerala Vision; Mass Telecasting Pvt. Ltd’s non-news MT; and Sony Pictures Network Media Pvt. Ltd’s movie channel Sony Pix 2 HD.

Of these, only Sony Pix 2 HD has got downlinking permission, as it is uplinked from overseas.

The clearance has been given by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry under the Uplinking and Downlinking Guidelines of 2011.

he total includes elevent channels whose licences had been cancelled as they failed to get security clearances but which got stay from different High Courts. These include two channels of Entertainment Television Network Pvt Ltd – M Tunes HD Hindi (earlier known as ETC Hindi) and Bhakti Sagar (earlier known as M Tunes Tamil/ETC Punjabi) – five channels of Mahuua Media Private Ltd – Mahuua, Mahuua News, First india, Mahua Music, and Mahua Music – and four channels of STV Enterprises Ltd - PUNJAB TODAY, STV JAMMU-KASHMIR NEWS, STV HARYANA NEWS, and STV UP NEWS.

The list of permitted private satellite TV channels is available in this ministry’s website i.e. www.mib.nic.in. and the list of permitted teleports as on date is enclosed.