Broadcast licensing finally catches up with the Telecom Act’s authorisation regime

The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has issued draft Telecommunications (Television, Radio and Associated Services) Rules, 2026 under the Telecommunications Act, 2023, consolidating multiple legacy broadcast guidelines (for satellite TV channels, DTH, HITS, IPTV, private FM and community radio) into a single rule set.

These draft rules shift the legal basis for broadcast permissions from the old, fragmented framework under the Telegraph Act and assorted policy guidelines to a unified authorisation regime under the new Telecom Act, which empowers the Centre to approve telecommunication services and networks. The stated intent is to simplify compliance and improve ease of doing business for television and radio services while aligning them with the broader telecom authorisation model.

Practically, this means that what were previously handled through separate MIB guidelines (uplinking/downlinking for TV channels, DTH/HITS permissions, FM and community radio policies) will now be governed through categories of authorisation defined in these rules, with standardised validity periods, eligibility, operational conditions, reporting obligations and renewal procedures. Stakeholders have been invited to send comments on the draft by late July 2026, making this an active consultation phase rather than a finalised regime.

From an editorial standpoint, one clear narrative thread is “broadcast licensing finally catches up with the Telecom Act’s authorisation regime”, with a secondary angle on whether this consolidation genuinely reduces friction for broadcasters and radio operators or mainly repackages existing controls into the new statute.

For broadcasters, the draft rules are a mix of regulatory convergence, new obligations, and some operational clarity.

A big positive is a single, harmonised authorisation framework covering TV channels, DTH, HITS, IPTV, private FM, community radio, teleports and TV news agencies, with defined authorisation tenures (10 years for most channels and teleports, 15 for FM, 20 for distribution). This should simplify licensing, renewals and transitions from legacy permissions, and the move to digital, standardised processes plus dropping GOPA-type paperwork is positioned as “ease of doing business”. IPTV also gets formal recognition, with ISPs and MSOs allowed to offer it via a simple declaration, easing entry for converged players.

The flip side is a denser compliance and content mandate layer. TV channels are expected to carry at least 30 minutes of public-interest content daily in the 6 am–11 pm band, while private FM must devote an hour to socially relevant content and keep at least 20 percent of output locally produced. Broadcasters must also preserve programme and ad recordings for 90 days, disclose landing-page deals to the government and ratings agencies, keep channels continuously active or risk lapsing authorisations, and obtain prior approval for changes in ownership or control.

Security and governance scrutiny also tighten. Key managerial personnel and governing body members must maintain continuous security clearance, and foreign technical staff working on broadcast networks require advance security approvals. For many existing networks, this converts what was often a somewhat informal, guideline-led compliance culture into a more codified, auditable regime under the Telecom Act, increasing procedural overhead even as it offers more predictability.

Overall, the impact on broadcasters is likely to be: clearer, longer-tenure licences and a unified rulebook on one side, but heavier ongoing compliance, content obligations, and transparency requirements (especially around landing pages and control changes) on the other.
BCS Bureau