New Delhi: A petition challenging the government decision to convert Doordarshan's Metro Channel, popularly known as DD II, into a 24-hour news channel has been filed in the Delhi High Court.

After a brief hearing, a Bench comprising Chief Justice B C Patel and Justice A K Sikri, on October 1 deferred the hearing to October 22 on the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) directing the petitioner to file detailed affidavit on the reported decision of Prasar Bharti Broadcasting Corporation to convert the DD II entertainment channel into a news channel.

The PIL filed by one Vinod Jain through senior advocate Rajiv Nayar and Kamal Mehta alleged that the decision to convert the free of cost entertainment channel having massive reach all over the country was because of extraneous considerations.

Contending that the revamping of DD II had been undertaken over the years with a view to countering the increasing challenge posed by other competing satellite channels, the PIL said the decision to scrap the entertainment channel was arbitrary as television rating points (TRP) graph has shown an upward trend for the programmes of the DD II.

The petitioner pointed out that a similar experiment in 1999 to broadcast 24-hour news channel at the cost of Rs 93 crore was eventually closed on January 25, 2002 due to heavy losses.

PTI