Govt sends illegal stations warnings

BALIKPAPAN, East Kalimantan: More than 2,000 television and radio stations are operating without frequency licenses, a cabinet minister says.

State Minister for Communications and Information Syamsul Mu'arif said on Monday that the stations would be banned if they failed to obtain licenses.

He, however, said the government had not set a deadline for the stations to obtain their licenses, pending the establishment of the Indonesian Broadcasting Committee (KPI).

Based on controversial Broadcasting Law No. 23/2002, the KPI should be established by October this year, a year after the law came into effect.

"The owners of those television and radio stations can process their licenses at the ministry and I promise to make it easy for them," Syamsul told reporters after a meeting with the Association of Indonesian Private Radio Stations in Balikpapan. --Antara