The government will strictly implement its decision to stop the airing of Bangladeshi advertisements on down-linked foreign television channels from April 1.
Information Minister Hasan Mahmud gave the information at a seminar, titled Private Television in Crisis, arranged by Broadcast Journalist Centre at Shilpakala Academy in Dhaka on Saturday, reports UNB.
"Running local advertisements on foreign channels is a punishable offence," he reminded cable operators. "Legal actions will be taken from the first day of April [to stop the practice]."
"Some local companies are running advertisements on foreign channels that have become popular in Bangladesh," Mahmud said.
"This practice is harming local television channels. We hope that the local channels will see a business of Tk 3.0 to 5.0 billion annually once this [government directive] is implemented," he said.
The government on March 13, banned the airing of local advertisements on down-linked foreign channels.
Minister Mahmud hoped the operators have taken necessary preparations to carry out the order. "We have already issued two circulars. We want to implement it (the decision) from April 1," he said.
