LAHORE, July 15: With the lifting of cross-media restriction, 10 new applicants have formally applied for licences to operate TV channels of their own.

According to sources in the federal information ministry, almost all major newspaper groups have applied for the licence.

The applicants include Nawa-i-Waqt, Khabrain, Business Observer (Karachi) and Daily Times. The Jang Group of Newspapers already owns a channel which is being aired from Dubai due to legal restrictions in Pakistan.

It may be mentioned that the federal cabinet on Saturday last withdrew the ban on cross-media restriction on setting up a TV channel to facilitate “plurality of opinion” in the country and decided in principle to award licence to all 10 hopefuls.

The application fee for a new channel is stated to be Rs5 million.