MUMBAI: Former Indian Premier League (IPL) chairman Lalit Modi will be appealing against the High Court of London?s verdict in the libel case filed against him by ex-New Zealand captain Chris Cairns.

Modi has to lodge papers by 20 April. Modi lost a libel case to Cairns and was asked to pay 90,000 pounds in damages to the all-rounder.

Cairns had sued Modi over a tweet in which the latter accused the New Zealander of being involved in match-fixing during the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL) in 2008.

Meanwhile, Modi criticised the opening ceremony of the IPL held last night that had the likes of Katy Perry performing. He tweeted: "So according to IPL fans ? nearly 100% have Tweeted they would have preferred Pre Game Opening Ceremony rather than an opening like today. Can?t bear to watch it anymore ? as on TV it looks appalling. Was really looking forward to seeing something well presented. I am sure the Ratings will show."

MUMBAI: Television viewers in Australia will not be able to watch the IPL which kicks off today in Chennai due to a stalemate involving Australian television networks and Indian cricket administrators.

A report in ?The Age? states that ?Network Ten? held the rights for the first four seasons of the IPL but declined to air last year?s event, mainly because of the poor ratings and also because it coincided with a diversification of its One HD channel away from consisting solely of sport.

The newspaper also reported that it is believed the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has sought a hefty price whenever a new IPL TV rights contract has been discussed with Australian networks.

Australians can watch the action online at ipl.indiatimes.com and youtube.com/indiatimes.

The successor to Ten for the now-lapsed IPL rights, Fox Sports, is about to begin its broadcast of the West Indies Tests, while on weekends it has significant AFL, rugby league, rugby union and soccer commitments.

MUMBAI: Even though Max is gearing up to launch the fifth season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) on 4 April, the Hindi general entertainment channels (GECs) seem to be relaxed and unaffected.

The executives of these channels believe that it will be working as usual this time, and are not showing any concern because of the IPL 5.

This is despite the fact that India is still a single TV household and IPL is known for starting a trend of attracting housewives and kids to watch matches. And, the GEC genre has been seeing a drop in its share during the time of IPL.

However, this time there have been apprehensions about the response for IPL because Indian cricket team has not been performing very well. Yet, it poses a challenge for the GECs when it comes to audiences? preference.

The GEC genre had shrunk by 4.35 per cent during IPL 4 (in the All India market), as compared to a 9.07 per cent drop it had witnessed in the first season of IPL.

GECs are gearing up to launch new shows also during the time of IPL to attract more eyeballs, even if the rest of the plan remains the same.

Colors, for instance, has launched a new fiction today at 7 pm band by the name Kairi. .

According to Colors CEO Raj Nayak, "Today there is so much of cricket all through the year. IPL for us is just another good cricket tournament in the annual calendar. The genre share does not get impacted severely, so for us its life as usual. And it is reflected in our approach, we are launching a new program- Kairi in the launch week of IPL. We have a programming strategy in place. Our focus will be to continue to give our viewers differentiated and a broad variety of fiction and non fiction content."

Zee TV, with its newly found vigour will be launching three new shows. It is bringing back its dancing reality show, DID lil Masters soon. Additionally, it is launching a new fiction show Phir Subah Hogi.

Zee Entertainment Enterprise (Zeel) marketing head - national channels Akash Chawla said, "We are ready to combat IPL this time too."

Chawla noted that the impact of IPL-2 was far less significant than that of the IPL-1. "Last year, the GECs received a 10-15 per cent rating hit because the IPL event was held after the board exams. Two things emerge clearly. One, that regular GEC shows are growing in terms of audience numbers despite IPL. And two, the return on investment, as a result, on the IPL is much lower than on the GECs for advertisers. The five times premium advertisers paid on the IPL is not delivering as much return."
Star Plus, the leading Hindi GEC is planning to take two of its shows, ?Sasural Genda Phool? and ?Maryada?, off-air. The channel is expected to introduce two new fiction properties Ek Dusre se Karte Hain Pyaar Hum and Pyaar Ki Naukri.

Star India business head Hindi channels Nitin Vaidya also feels that IPL will not be able to shake the GEC genre stability. He said, "IPL effect has been declining over a period of time. Star Plus? programming strategy does not depend on IPL. We follow an annual calendar and all programming strategies are implemented accordingly. In the past as well we have launched programs that have done pretty well."

Turner International India chief content officer Vivek Bahl, who looks after the content of Imagine TV also, added, "Anything that brings up decent numbers does affect other?s ratings to an extent. Though the IPL ratings have been dipping each year, non-fiction shows get more affected than fiction shows by the same. Especially fiction that?s been a habit tends to get lesser affected during the IPL. Guess the above is due to the simple fact that the core non-fiction viewers are also those who watch the IPL.

"IPL target audience could be different but to lure that audience does a channel try to incorporate some activities around IPL in their popular shows. We don?t believe in tweaking our content in the face of any outside events or competition. The only ones we cater, & try to stay true to, are our viewers."

Meanwhile, Sony Entertainment Television and Sab, being the sister channels of Max, are not launching any new show. But post IPL, Set will launch singing reality show the sixth season of Indian Idol.

Life OK, Star India?s second GEC will be launching Aasmaan Se Aage on 23 April.