ISLAMABAD - Pakistan Electronic Media Regularity Authority (PEMRA) yesterday approved suspension of two licences of TV channels, including Royal TV and Rohi TV, in its 109th meeting over violation of the Authority’s rules and regulations and telecasted the vulgar and abusive languages.
The Authority approved suspension of Sohni Dharti channel’s licence for violating PEMRA laws and terms and conditions of its licence. The channel is non-operational for almost two years without any reason or approval from the Authority in violation of Section 28 of PEMRA Act and despite they are provided repeated opportunities, the licencee has failed to comply with the directives of the Authority.
The Authority also decided to suspend the licence and transmission of Royal TV due to non-payment of fine and failing to air apology for telecasting highly vulgar and abusive remarks against an anchorperson.
It may be mentioned that the Council of Complaints Lahore in its meeting dated January 11, 2016 had recommended imposition of Rs100,000/- fine on Royal TV for using highly abusive language against anchor Mubasher Lucman in its two subsequent programmes “Issue of the Day” dated November 25th and 26th 2015 respectively.
The Council had also recommended for suspension of Royal TV channel if it fails to pay fine within 15 days. The recommendations of the Council were approved by the Chairman Authority being competent under delegated powers of the Authority. Since the channel has failed to comply with the said orders, the licence of Royal TV is therefore ordered to be suspended.
Meanwhile, the case of revocation of satellite TV licence of Rohi TV was referred back to the Council of Complaints for review. Other important decisions of the Authority include approval of change in management of Urdu-1 TV and Neo TV channels on their own request. Authority also approved the transfer of licence of “Dawn News English” from M/s Aurora Broadcasting Services (Pvt.) Ltd. to M/s City News Network (SMC-Pvt.) Ltd. in the name of “City 41”.  To facilitate its licencees, the Authority also approved the simplification of cable TV licencing procedure by reducing the un-necessary documentation which was causing inordinate delay in award of cable licenses.
Chairman PEMRA Absar Alam, Secretary Ministry of Information Broadcasting & National Heritage Saba Mohsin Raza, Chairman FBR Nisar Mohammad Khan and Shaheen Habibullah (Member Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) were present in the meeting. However, Nargis Nasir (Member Punjab) participated through video link from Dubai.