Beijing – China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) has limited the number of foreign TV channels in hotel rooms to just 31.

ESPN STAR Sports is among the channels to lose out.

"ESPN STAR Sports is still in the renewal process of its landing rights and is actively working to conclude the arrangements," says a company spokesman.

The 31 permitted channels are CNN, HBO, Cinemax, CNBC Asia Pacific, MTV Mandari, National Geographic Channel Asia, STAR Movies, Channel V, AXN, Discovery, Hallmark, BBC World, NHK World Premium, Phoenix Movies, Phoenix Chinese, TVB8, TVB Galaxy, NOW, MASTV Chinese, Phoenix Infonews Channel, Bloomberg, Xing Kong Wei Shi, Euro Sports News, CETV, Horizon Channel, SUNTV, Celestial Movies, Channel NewsAsia, TV5, East TV and Cuba Vision International.