Kunal Dasgupta, CEO Sony TV, said they were “in touch” with the Information and Broadcasting Ministry and the fact that the World’s Sexiest Ads was being aired after 11 pm and not on prime-time TV may go in its favour. Indications are that like Fashion TV, AXN may just cleanse its channel content of all late-night programmes that hurt Indian morality and be back in business, “but after March 15”.

However, I&B Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi says many other channels are on his watchlist.

AXN is not the only channel that has faced the I&B Ministry axe in India. It is, in fact, the seventh one to be banned, including PTV—not to mention the 205-odd show-cause notices issued to various channels for “crossing the decency line”.

Safeguarding “public morality” from being exposed to obscenity has been high on the I&B Ministry’s agenda ever since the Cable TV Networks Regulation Act came into being in the mid-’90s. At least four of Dasmunsi’s predecessors treaded the same path, quoting the same sub-section of the Act (20/2), to selectively prohibit transmission of channels for “protecting the TV audience”.

Ban History

PTV: One of the first channels to face prohibition orders. The Kargil war was on and the then I&B Minister Pramod Mahajan justified the ban in a write-up published in this newspaper on June 30, '99.

TB6: Arun Jaitley, one of Mahajan's successors in the Ministry banned the Russian late night channel that served adult fare.

Others: In May 2005, Jaipal Reddy prohibited transmission/re-transmission of: BlueKiss, BlueKiss Express, BlueKiss Promo, and TBL-XXX, and banned Free X-TV in October the same year.