Losing out to stiff competition in the highly dynamic broadcasting field, and in its constant efforts to push the Doordarshan channels, the Indian government is now pumped up to impose regulations on IPTV service providers. The Indian Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry has sent a notice to IPTV operators directing them to beam eight mandatory channels of national broadcaster, Doordarshan.

The directive, as issued as per the section 8 of the Cable TV Network Regulation Act, mandates them to telecast Lok Sabha Television, DD Rajya Sabha, DD-1, DD News, DD Sports, DD Urdu, Gyan Darshan and DD Bharti.

Two different present regulations respectively compel the Direct-To-Home (DTH) and cable service providers to broadcast Doordarshan channels. The Cable TV act says that cable TV operators are bound to broadcast minimum of two DD terrestrial channels, two Parliament channels and one regional channel. Owing to limited bandwidth, the DTH players are required to broadcast two DD and two Parliament channels.

There is no such bandwidth limitation on IPTV service providers, as it won’t affect them in any way as accommodating eight channels won’t be a big deal for these service providers.  X