Twelve hours of daily power cuts have forced Nepali private television channels to cut their transmission time. Five 24-hour hour TV channels will now go off air from midnight to 5 in the morning. Members of the newly formed Television Broadcasters Nepal (TBN) made this announcement at a press conference.
Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) has announced 16 hours load-shedding a day from tomorrow, a jump of four hours from the present situation. Sher Singh Bhat, director of NEA’s Systems Operations Department said yesterday: “Due to the receding water level in run of rivers and Kulekhani Reservoir, NEA is not able to meet the demand and there is no option but to increase the power outage time.” The total power outage will be increased to 108 hours a week starting tomorrow.
Kantipur TV, Image Channel, Avenues, Sagarmatha and ABC will now reduce their airtime by five hours daily. Among them, Avenues, Sagarmatha and ABC are 24-hour news channels. The TBN has demanded that the government make arrangements for continuous supply of power to TV stations.
A number of FM radio stations around the country have already cut their transmission hours while few of them have already gone off air due to load-shedding.
(Source: various Nepali news sources)
