Two very popular cable television channels, Living TV and Comedy Central, may disappear from Maltese screens from Thursday.

Telecoms company Go yesterday said the “territorial rights” for the stations could not be cleared for Malta as a result of “international broadcasting developments”.

It added that the channels were not available for redistribution by “any TV operator”, implying that the channels would also have to be removed from Melita’s line-up.

Meanwhile, Melita said discussions with the respective providers were still “ongoing” with a view to keeping transmissions available for Malta. A customer care operator from Melita’s call centre, which was bombarded with calls yesterday evening, said: “So far there is no announcement from Melita confirming this. If such a decision is taken it will be communicated on the Weather and Information channel.”

Industry sources said the decision could have been taken as the result of a change in management within the company that owns both stations, together with Bravo and Challenge TV.

Another possible reason could be that certain shows carried by these stations imposed restrictions on the territories in which they can be aired, the sources added.

The removal of these stations is likely to make legally questionable alternative television connections like Dreambox and Satellite even more attractive to customers.

Go sources said negotiations over the channels had been going on for the past few weeks but the decision was now final.

To make up for the inconvenience, Go said it had made several improvements to its Silver and Gold packages.

The Silver package will include Zone Reality, Fine Living Network and Animal Planet, which is totally new to Go’s line-up. Meanwhile, the Gold package will go a step further, adding the highly acclaimed Food Network. Go Stars, which airs movies and TV series, will be offered free of charge until June 2011 for Gold customers.