MUMBAI: The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has given ABP News Network four new TV channel licences in the month of February. The company has received uplinking and downlinking licences under the names ABP Andhra, ABP Ganga, ABP Kannada and ABP Tamil.

One of the licences could be used to launch an Uttar Pradesh centric news channel that the company is planning to launch. The company also operates a Punjabi digital news channel ABP Sanjha, which was then launched as ABP Asmita in 2016. ABP News Network currently owns and operates four news channels ABP News (Hindi), ABP Majha (Marathi), ABP Ananda (Bengali) and ABP Asmita (Gujarati).

Recently, the news broadcaster had converted its pay channels to free to air (FTA) under the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) new regulatory framework. ABP Ananda and ABP Majha went FTA from 8 February.

In the month of January and February, MIB gave licenses to other six new channels. The channels were Skystar Bangla, Skystar Telugu, PTC Music, PTC Punjabi, PTC Simran and Zee Classic. All the six channels are under non-news category.

G-Next Media got the permission for uplinking and downlinking PTC Music, PTC Punjabi and PTC Simran on Intelsat-20 satellite in Punjabi, Hindi, and English on 7 February 2019.

Zee Entertainment Enterprises got the permission for uplinking and downlinking Zee Classic on Asiasat-7 in Punjabi, Hindi and all regional languages on 13 February 2019. Skystar Entertainment Pvt Ltd got the permission for uplinking and downlinking Skystar Bangla and Skystar Telugu on Intelsat-20 in Hindi, English, all India scheduled languages and world language on 15 January 2019.