Kathmandu, October 15: The government has directed the distributors of foreign television channels in the country to abide by the clean feed policy from October 23.
Issuing a press statement on Wednesday, the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology told them to do so by referring to the Advertisement (Regulation) Act, 2019.
The act has a provision of the policy, which bars the cable television operators from airing the foreign television channels with the advertisements of foreign brands in the Nepali skies from October 23.
The Ministry also warned of legal action against those fail to act as per the spirit of the law.
It also said that the agencies like Indian Broadcasters Forum, Discovery Networks and BBC News had requested the government to postpone the date of implementing the policy.
The ministry, nevertheless, did not entertain such request since the law itself gave enough time to air content free of foreign advertisements.
Most of the countries in the world, including the South Asian ones, have already adopted the system of clean feed. The Advertising Association of Nepal (AAN) has long been lobbying for such adoption in the context of Nepal.
The country’s annual advertising market, which is currently estimated to be worth around Rs 10 billon, will grow by double in two years, if the clean feed is practiced, according to it.
