Khalsa Television Limited has chosen to surrender its licence, which makes it ineligible to operate the KTV channel that served the Sikh community in the United Kingdom.

The move comes after the KTV licence was suspended earlier in March following a “serious breach” of Ofcom broadcasting rules related to content.

“This was after our investigation found that Prime Time, a 95-minute live discussion programme, included material likely to incite violence, including murder,” the UK media regulator said Tuesday, detailing on its website the process followed leading to surrendering of the licence.

Following the March suspension, Ofcom issued Khalsa Television Limited with a draft notice to revoke its licence. On May 26,  2022, having received Ofcom’s draft revocation notice, Khalsa Television Limited chose to surrender its licence.

“Ofcom has a duty to revoke a broadcast licence if we are satisfied that a licensee has broadcast a programme likely to encourage or to incite the commission of crime; that it has therefore contravened its licence conditions; and that the contravention justifies the revocation of the licence,” the British regulator explained.

Ofcom said the latest overstepping of the content code was the third within four years when the licensee had been found to be in breach of “rules on incitement to crime due to programmes inciting violence”.

Pointing out that any person who wishes to hold a broadcast licence in the UK must be “fit and proper to hold it”, Ofcom said if KTV, or those controlling it, were to apply for a licence in the future, the regulator’s commencement of the revocation process would be a major factor influencing a final decision on granting permission to broadcast there.