Complex sentence: At a time when the only Malayalam-language television channel available was the government-owned Doordarshan, the channel had hired a transponder on the Russian Ekran satellite, with an uplink from the USSR.
Split into simpler sentences: At a time when the only Malayalam-language television channel available was the government-owned Doordarshan. The channel had hired a transponder on the Russian Ekran satellite, with an uplink from the USSR.