Looks like the common assumption that ESPN Star Sports will be airing the India telecast of next year‘s Cricket World Cup in South Africa may be proved presumptuous. And Sony Entertainment Television‘s MAX channel may yet have some cricket worth showcasing.

SET yesterday issued a release that it was in advanced negotiations with Global Cricket Corporation (GCC) & World Sport Nimbus (WSN) for acquiring the Indian television rights to broadcast a six-year package of ICC (International Cricket Council) cricket championships including the ICC Cricket World Cups in 2003 and 2007.

"GCC/WSN and SET are confident they will successfully conclude this transaction and hope to be in a position to make a formal announcement next month," the release says.

It may be recalled that the worldwide rights for television, Internet and sponsorship for a seven year period that includes the 2003 and 2007 cricket World Cups was won in mid-2000 by World Sports Group, along with Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corp through a joint bid. The combine won the rights for a minimum guarantee of $550 million after a fierce bidding war with Subhash Chandra‘s Zee Telefilms.

The GCC is a joint venture between WSG and News Corp and is managing the commercial programme for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2003.

The main question of course is what sum will SET chief executive Kunal Dasgupta be willing to pay to secure the rights.

The Hallmark channel may be struggling to find an audience in India but in America the story is different. Hallmark Channel has once again outranked all ad-supported cable and broadcast networks in time spent viewing growth in prime time, an official release states.

The channel has positioned itself as the network consumers are turning to for high-quality programming that is engaging, compelling and relevant. The release states that during the fourth quarter of last year (October, November, December 2002) Hallmark Channel US increased its "time spent viewing" (94 minutes vs. 74 minutes) representing a 27 per cent increase over its fourth quarter 2000 results. The network was followed by the Lifetime and TVLand networks.

Earlier, Hallmark claimed to have ranked number one with a 35 per cent increase in "time spent viewing" growth in third quarter 2001 (third quarter 2001 vs. third quarter 2000).

The figures were calculated by Nielsen Total Activity Report (fourth quarter 2001 vs. fourth quarter 2000, 10/1-12/30/01 vs. 10/2-12/31/00).

Hallmark Channel is a 24-hour television network that provides entertainment programming to a national audience of nearly 44 million subscribers, the release states. The programme service is distributed through 1,700 cable systems, DirecTV (Channel 312) and EchoStar (DISH Channel 185) direct-to-home satellite services and C-Band dish owners across America. Hallmark claims that its combined channels reach 83 million subscribers globally.

ViaSat has reported record sales and earnings for its third quarter of fiscal year 2002, ended 31 December, 2001. ViaSat claims to produce advanced digital satellite telecommunications and wireless signal processing equipment for commercial and government markets. It claims to be a market leader in Ka-band satellite systems, from user terminals to large gateways for both geosynchronous and low earth orbit systems. It has field offices in India, China, Boston, the United Kingdom, Australia.

Sales for the quarter were $50.1 million compared to $43.1 million for the comparable quarter last year, a 16.2 per cent increase. Net income, which includes the effects of acquisition charges, for the third quarter of fiscal year 2002 decreased 11 per cent to $2.4 million compared to net income of $2.7 million for the third quarter of the prior year. Sales increased 24.3 per cent to $148.4 million for the nine months ended December 31, 2001, compared to $119.4 million in sales for the same period last year.

Business Highlights include:

1. ViaSat reached agreement and subsequently completed the acquisition of US Monolithics (USM) for approximately $30 million in cash and stock. USM is a designer of proprietary gallium arsenide millimeter wave Integrated Circuits (MMICs) with strong capabilities in the packaging and integration of subsystems including power amplifiers, block upconverters and entire transceivers, especially in complex high-frequency applications. USM is expected to improve ViaSat‘s margins on existing product lines, as well as on large broadband opportunities that ViaSat is pursuing.

2. Although selected in February 2001, this quarter ViaSat received an order from Boeing for the development and initial production quantities of the receive and transmit subsystem for the Connexion by Boeing broadband Internet and data communication service. Also during the quarter, ViaSat delivered initial production units to the venture, in support of two-way broadband demonstrations for their customers, including private aircraft owners and agencies of the United States government.