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  • WTC terror

    The CEO who lost everthing in WTC terror

    Nov 10, 2001

    Willow Bay Profiles Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick on CNN's Pinnacle 

  • Sahara TV's November rendezvous with four new shows

    Submitted by ITV Production on Nov 10, 2001
    News Headline

    Slowly but surely, the fourth player in the Hindi entertainment television sweepstakes, Sahara TV, is keeping up with its plans to innovate its programming content. To add to Vilayati Babu, which it unveiled on 5 November, the channel is aiming to launch another three serials this month. (Vilayati Babu, a comedy show airs at 11:00 am on Mondays, and brings together two ace comedy stars, Shekhar Suman and Satish Shah, for the first time on television.)

    Zindagi...Teri Meri Kahani -the new attraction on Sahara

    Sahara TV vice-president (publicity, promotions & PR) Priya Raj says that, Apnapan, the first of these will launch on 12 November at 1:30 pm (repeat telecast at 11:00 pm). The weekly drama series stars Kiran Kumar.

    It will be followed by the flagoff of a daily soap, Santaan on 22 November. Santaan revolves around the issue of equal opportunities for the girl child and airs at 8:00 pm.

    Zindagi...Teri Meri Kahani, the third new show from the Sahara TV stable, hits the small screen on 23 November. The series is an emotional drama is inspired by the hit seventies movie Kramer vs Kramer. It focuses on the suffering that a spouse goes through when a couple decides to divorce and the psychological problems that their child faces. Produced by Ashwin Verma of A.V. Telefilms, it is directed by Arun Frank and stars Parmeet Sethi, Iravati Harshe, Minal Kulkarni and a host of others.

    Earlier this month, Sahara had rejigged the timings of two news programmes. The evening news programme at 7.30 pm was shifted to an earlier slot at 5.30 pm while the late night news hour was extended by 30 minutes. The late night news hour now comprises 75 per cent news in Hindi, while the rest is in English.

    Says Raj: "We realized that the 7.30 pm news slot was not too popular. We found that viewers were watching Sahara programmes till the news came on, and were then shifting to other channels. They would then return to Sahara for prime time programmes. On the other hand, we have a strong viewership for the late night news programme. Hence, the decision to change the timings. "

  • Two foreign firms seek alliances for CATV market

    Submitted by ITV Production on Nov 10, 2001
    News Headline

    Two foreign companies, which showcased their wares for the first time in India at the recently concluded ScaT India 2001, are trying to make inroads into the rapidly burgeoning cable & satellite television (CATV) market.

    Canadian company Lindsay Electronics, makers of RF distribution products for the CATV and wired communication industries, is seeking Indian representatives and distributors. Among its CATV distribution products are figure hardline passives, subscriber and apartment amplifiers, power passing multitaps and other last mile gizmos, all operating in the 1 GHz range.

    "The entire world is rapidly going digital and channels are all going pay. The Indian market is poised to grow tremendously and in 2003, India will be the place to be," says an optimistic Lindsay Worldwide marketing director D.T. (Dave) Atman. "We expect increasingly bigger business and revenues in India; we will offer improved latest technology solutions for high-speed data and Internet services too."

    Atman is not disturbed by the popularity of low-cost Chinese CATV products, which have flooded the Indian market. Says he: "We are not perturbed by the Chinese. They offer equipment for the lower end. We offer quality equipment, which is costlier but true value for money. We are very focused; our main interest is in a niche market."

    Another company, which wants to forge Indian partnerships, is the China-based Sichuan Jiuzhou Electronic Technology. It churns out a range of digital satellite receivers, modulators, trunk and line amplifiers, taps and splitters, C/Ku Band satellite receiving LNBs and antenna, hand-held level meters, optical transmitters, reverse receivers and auto restoring workstations nodes. The products operate in a 550 MHz to 850 MHz range

    The Zee Network is apparently in a hurry to strike a deal. The reason: its agreements for telecast rights for a large chunk of its movie library are reportedly expiring this year. (In 1994, the company had acquired several movies from various producers with licences ranging from five to seven years.) The channel needs to bolster its stock of films for the days ahead.

    Sichuan Jiuzhou international department project manager Alex Deng says his company is seeking to appoint representatives and dealers to vend its products to the large cable TV operator population in India.

     

  • Zee

    Zee making a pitch for B4U?

    Nov 10, 2001

    The shakeout in the television business continues.

  • Zee making a pitch for B4U?

    Submitted by ITV Production on Nov 10, 2001
    News Headline

    The shakeout in the television business continues. Several channels have shut down, some are struggling to stay afloat and are laying off people as advertising and subscription revenues continue to shrink. This makes for a prime environment for mergers and acquisitions.

    Into this fray has stepped Zee Telefilms once again, which has made a couple of botched efforts at trying to acquire other channels or forge alliances. (Asianet and UTN are some of the alliances which failed.)

    B4U CEO Ravi Gupta: squashing takeover rumours

    In its current attempt, it is apparently trying to take over the entertainment channel B4U Television Network once again, according to a report in The Hindustan Times.

    The Delhi daily has reported that the Zee group is in negotiations with a senior B4U management team in London currently and that the deal will be finalised shortly. B4U sources in India, however, denied any such development.

    Sources say that the deal is likely to focus on acquisition of the impressive B4U movie library. B4U CEO Ravi Gupta had told indiantelevison.com recently that the channel holds rights to 1,000 films in India and overseas rights of 1,600 films.

    Zee chairman
    Subhash Chandra: once bitten, not twice shy?

    The Zee Network is apparently in a hurry to strike a deal. The reason: its agreements for telecast rights for a large chunk of its movie library are reportedly expiring this year. (In 1994, the company had acquired several movies from various producers with licences ranging from five to seven years.) The channel needs to bolster its stock of films for the days ahead.

    Zee‘s proposed acquisition of B4U Television Network, which owns and runs the satellite TV channels, B4U Movies and B4U Music, is believed to follow the recent absorption of UK-based parent company LMB Holdings into B4U, sources say. Reports say that while Zee has appointed global consultancy major KPMG as its advisor for the deal, B4U has appointed another major consultant, Pricewaterhouse Coopers.

    B4U, which is expected to come out with an IPO in September next year, has dropped its massive expansion plans in the broadband and e-commerce business, reports say. The company has an estimated 70 movies under production but further movie plans have been substantially scaled down.

    As part of the deal, reports say, Zee will also get B4U‘s lucrative international operations, including UK and US, reports said. In UK, B4U has around 40,000 subscribers. With B4U Movies, the company had broken even on cash basis in the overseas marketing during the first year of operation, reports said.

    This is not the first time that Zee Telefilms is trying to acquire B4U Telelvision. Earlier in May, the Subhash Chandra-promoted Essel Group?s investment companies claimed to have advanced funds for acquiring a 15 per cent stake in B4U Multimedia (now B4U Television Networks) from the disgraced stock broker Ketan Parekh. The company had then refuted these claims saying that Parekh?s holding was between "four to five per cent".

     

  • Star hike was planned move

    Submitted by ITV Production on Nov 10, 2001
    News Headline

    The Indian Cab & Sat Reporter, indiantelevision.com‘s weekly subscription newsletter, had predicted earlier this week that Star‘s announcement to slash carriage rates was merely an eyewash, and that it would hike rates eventually.
    We present here the full text of the item that appeared in the Indian Cab & Sat Reporter dated 8 November 2001:

    MUKERJEA PULLING A FAST ONE WITH TALK OF SLASHING SUBSCRIPTION RATES?

    Star India CEO Peter Mukerjea is mouthing a new mantra these days. Slash basic carriage rates for cable ops for the Star digital bouquet of six channels if they in turn are willing to declare higher subscriber bases.

    Currently, Star charges cable ops Rs 30 for the Star package, but they disclose only 20 per cent of their actual subscriber counts, he says. "Now if they are willing to take their disclosure up to 40 per cent, we are willing to charge these cable ops, half of what we are charging them currently," says Mukerjea.

    Mukerjea has given his own spin to the whole affair by declaring that the valuations of cable enterprises will go up if they buy into his proposition. This might have made sense in a context outside that existing in India because internationally valuations are based on connectivity. The Indian market operates quite differently so where Mukerjea derives the confidence that his idea is workable is a bit of a mystery.

    Mukerjea, along with his distribution head Arun Mohan, has started discussions with two large MSOs - Hathway Cable (in which Star has a 26 per cent stake) and the Hinduja-run Incable - on this issue. InCable has often been involved in arm wrestling matches with the network as it has refused to cough up even the 20 per cent carriage fees. Star in turn has on occasion switched off the receiver boxes in InCable headends in order to get them to pay up.

    Mukerjea says he is taking this step because broadcasters are getting payments from cable ops for only 5-6 million of the 40 million cable and satellite homes in India. At around RS 100 for all the basic subscription channels, that works out to about RS 600 million a month or RS 7.2 billion a year. Total cable subscription revenues garnered by cable ops amount to about RS 4,000 million a month (@RS 100 per month) or RS 50,000 million a year.

    These figures are nowhere close to reality. If the pay channels were collecting so much money they would be laughing all the way to bank. Last year, they reported pay TV collections of only RS 3,000 million for the 12 months. Obviously Mukerjea is flinging the numbers out of thin air, or he expects the digitisation and encryption efforts of Zee TV and Sony Entertainment to result in the increased figures he is talking about for this year.

    Or he could be voicing that he is making a desperate grab at subscription revenues at a time when ad spends are vanishing.

    Will cable ops buy into his scheme? Unlikely. The reason: what guarantee is there that Star will not hike its rates after cable ops disclose higher subscriber numbers. Even if Star promises that there will be a lock-period what guarantee is there that it will stick to it? The trade is known for the conflicts between broadcasters and cable operators.

    A school of thought is that Mukerjea is letting loose some smoke to camouflage the real issue. Once cable ops refuse to buy into his scheme, he is going to propose a hike in subscription rates for cable ops at the existing subscriber levels.

    For the cable TV trade it is likely to be a Catch 22 situation. If they refuse to buy in to the higher disclosure or higher subscription schemes and their headends are switched off, they will face flak from the viewers who have become diehard fans of Star Plus, the numero uno entertainment channel. Clearly, this will be a hard fought battle.

     

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