The long-fraught-with-controversy ICC cricket telecast rights issue has finally been decided. And the winner is not Zee TV, rather it is its staunch rival News Corp which is supporting the World Sport Group (a front company for Murdoch‘s media conglomerate).
ICC Development (International) Ltd made the announcement yesterday in Paris. The World Sport Group will for the next seven years represent it for the sale of commercial rights for several major ICC cricket events. Among them figure:

* the 2003 World Cup in South Africa and the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies.

The winning bid of a minimum guarantee of $550 million by WSG/News Corp was much lower than the Zee Multimedia Worldwide-TWI combine‘s widely reported $625 million. The announcement was issued by David Richards Managing Director of ICC Development (International) Ltd in Paris yesterday.

The loss could come as a major blow to Zee TV which was banking heavily on the ICC rights to launch its sports channel. In the alternative it is quite likely that it will launch rebel parallel cricket tournaments just as Kerry Packer did in the late seventies-early eighties.

Corporate restructuring seems to be the name of the game at MTV these days.

Recently having appointed five new Vice Presidents for MTV India, this time, MTV Networks have announced a newly created position of President, MTV Networks International. And taking us this duty will be Bill Roedy who is currently President, MTV/VH1 International. Under his new title, Bill Roedy will be responsible for leading the international operations of Nickelodeon, MTV and VH1.

Mr Roedy will be based in London and will report directly to MTV Networks Chairman Tom Freston. Tom Freston said that a more close co-ordination of the business was required by putting all their brands under one executive mirroring the organization in the US and felt that Bill Roedy was uniquely qualified for the job having pioneered MTV and VH1‘s great international success.

With the market looking bearish, a lot of media companies put off their plans to make initial public offerings a couple of months ago. With the market looking up, the IPO faucet is being opened again. And amongst the first to come trickling out is the Dheeraj Kumar owned Creative Eye Ltd which reported a revenue of Rs 497.07 million in the year ended 31 March 2000.

The company is seeking to raise Rs 560 million through the bookbuilding route. The minimum share price it is looking at: Rs 225 per share. The issue size: 2.502 million shares. Of this 1.877 million are being kept aside for the bookbuilding route and 626,000 shares for the fixed price route. The issue will be open between 30 June 2000 and 6 July.

The company plans to set up several Internet portals and also purchase post production equipment for a studio it owns. Two Internet portals it is setting up are: entry2india.com, and matrashakti.com.

Is the issue worth a buy? The risk factors against the company are many. Creative Eye is primarily a family run concern run by the former actor and his wife and it is heavily dependent on DD as its main buyer of programming. Its dependence on the state-owned broadcaster is likely to increase what with the management looking to market films on DD, DD metro. This apart it is planning other mega mythological series and soaps for the national broadcaster.

While at first look one may therefore be inclined to say nyet to a buy, it would not be totally fair. There are worse scrips in the market which are doing reasonably well on the bourses. One could therefore pick up a minimum quantity of the share if one gets one hands on it. And sell some of the lot you get on every new high.

In the music channel segment, the belief is: the more the merrier. Yes, Channel [V] is in the thick of a storm with Zee TV taking potshots at it and the government also taking it to the cleaners for airing a show which had two girls stripping on a dare. Now MTV has thrown its mite into the fray by placing an ad which exploits the budding talents of the fart monster Gaseous Clay to tell the tale of how it is whipping the competition. The ad has Gaseous Clay, telling advertisers and their like to cut the crap and let‘s talk farts and figures. It goes on to say that MTV is beating the rest on several viewership parameters no matter which rating service is considered or which audience is. "MTV comes out smelling of roses", the ad says compared to all the rest. The ad ends with the line: "Music Television. No Shit" and urges marketers to come and place their ads on the channel.

The Channel [V] saga continues. Already in the midst of a major controversy, there‘s been a new twist in the Channel [V] tale. Now it is accusing Zee of dirty pool.
The channel which ran into trouble with the airing of a particular episode of their show [V] Dares You which had two girls stripping to their underwear is desperately trying to find its way out of controversy. The Police have arrested six people from the channel for obscenity who have later been released on bail. The channel also faces protests from The Bharatiya Janata Party which held demonstrations outside the [V] office in Mumbai.

Channel [V] meanwhile has accused its rival Zee Television for trying to bring down its television ratings. Zee Television allegedly got hold of the tape containing the episode and ran it for 63 minutes. Zee also aired a part of this episode on its Zee News channel and aired comments from Shobha De and BJP MLA Mangal Prabhat Lodha on the incident.

Suresh Bala, General Manager, Channel [V] told Indian Express that this was a media war and Zee Television was taking far more interest in it than the others, and involving political parties to this issue and blowing it completely out of proportion.

Industry observers believe Zee TV is poking Star TV‘s management in the eye just as it goes on an all-out frontal attack against the former with its new Hindi language programmes on Star Plus. Additionally, it is quite likely that it is attacking Channel [V] which is looking weak and has been pushed back to the number three slot (possibly) by MTV and the highly charged B4U Music. The latter has made waves because of its clearer picture and better sound quality and the fact that it is free to air as compared to [V] which is part of the Star TV digital pay TV bouquet.

What‘s more is that Zee TV owns the music channel Music Asia which has been a struggler in the music channel sweepstakes. The management has been trying hard to carve out a place for the channel amongst Indian youth but has so far met with failure. Zee TV‘s creative honchos are keen to kickstart the channel once again and are to rename it as Zee Music. Hence, it is taking a chance to hurl muck at Channel [V], show it in bad light so that its own channel can steal the limelight.

Channel [V] has taken an apologetic stand to all this for offending public sensibility besides scrapping the show.