10 decisions made to stop illegal airing of TV channels

Ten decisions have been made by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry to stop the illegal broadcasting of domestic and foreign TV channels and operation of unlicensed commercial activities on the broadcast media.

The ministry made the decisions at a meeting, chaired by State Minister for Information and Broadcasting Mohammad Ali Arafat, with the Posts, Telecommunications and ICT Ministry at the information ministry's conference room on April 2, said a press release on Tuesday (May6).

The decisions are: only service providers permitted under the Cable Television Network Management Act, 2006 can transmit domestic and foreign channels approved by the government to the subscribers.

Foreign channels or any unauthorized channel cannot be downlinked, broadcast, transmitted or distributed without clean feed.

Set-top boxes cannot be imported and marketed illegally.

It is completely illegal to carry out campaigns inspiring the use of apps for streaming TV channels or selling such apps by installing in set-top-boxes. The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) should take legal action against this illegal act.

The information ministry and the ICT ministry will take necessary steps in accordance with the existing laws and regulations against any illegal activity for Bangladesh's security and increasing government revenue collection, preventing money laundering and preserving the country's art, literature, culture and values.

According to the Section 3(1) of the Cable Television Network Management Act, 2006, no distributor or service provider shall downlink, market, transmit or broadcast any channel in Bangladesh other than the channels approved by the government on the basis of designated application form. Furthermore, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has issued instructions regarding clean feed broadcasting of foreign TV channels programmes, so no person or organization could broadcast or transmit foreign TV channel programmes without clean feed.

According to the Section 3(2) of the Cable Television Network Management Act, 2006, no distributor or service provider can market, transmit or broadcast any channel in Bangladesh through their own programmes like video, VCD, DVD or any other means except the government approved channels. No person or institution shall broadcast or transmit the feed of a domestic or foreign TV channel or any channel of its own violating the law.

As per the Section 4(1) of the Cable Television Network Management Act, 2006, no person shall operate activities as a distributor or service provider without holding license. Therefore, no person or organization except license holding distributors or service providers can operate or broadcast TV channels or programmes.

Authorized distributors should inform their foreign TV channel broadcasters about the decisions in written form.
Legal action will be taken against persons or organizations involved in unlawful, illegal or unauthorized broadcasting.