The Ministry of Information and Communication (MOIC) has renewed the satellite broadcasting licence of the Spacetime Network, which had earlier been cancelled on 3 January. The licence was cancelled by a controversial decision by the then minister in charge of MOIC, Jaya Prakash Prasad Gupta. The company was charged of squatting on its license issued about eight years ago. The same criterion was not applied to another company, South Asian Broadcasting, which had not started preliminary work towards beginning broadcasting via satellite, while Spacetime's equipment had already arrived at the border customs office. MOIC sources said the old decision was reviewed after Spacetime applied to the Prime Minister's Office with evidence of the arrival of the equipment at Birgunj weeks before its licence was cancelled. The ministry was totally unaware of this.
The MIOC decision and its eventual reversal once again point to the discretionary authority that broadcasting laws grant the ministry, which is effectively both the licensing and regulatory authority. Generally, once a company is licensed, it becomes the effective owner of the allocated frequency forever, as there are no rules for the periodic auction of broadcast licences or frequencies. Nepal also does not have rules barring cross-ownership of media, such as a newspaper organisation owning a radio or television station. Channel Nepal, Spacetime's satellite channel, is to begin broadcasting within a few months