NEW DELHI: With both Universities and the private sector setting up mass communications schools, the Government has decided to review the mushrooming of such institutions across the country.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni said her Ministry was already consulting the Human Resource Development Ministry on constituting a committee for this purpose. The committee would comprise key stakeholders associated with the issue.

Meanwhile, she said the Government had initiated measures to establish Regional Centres of Indian Institute of Mass Communications at Aizawl, Amravati, Kerala and Jammu to promote excellence in journalism. The Minister said she was confident that by the end of the year, an Act of Parliament could be enacted whereby IIMC would become an institute of excellence.

The Minister was speaking after conferring the Seema Nazreth Award for Journalistic Excellence to Indulekha Arvind of Business Standard. The Award instituted by Business Standard, she said, provided the ideal platform to nurture true talent based on professionalism, skills and aptitude for journalism. The criteria for selecting the winner of the award was quite rigorous based on quality of writing, information gathering, analysis and the impact of the published work on society.

The Minister said she was confident that the ongoing debate in the country on the issue of regulation and self-regulation in the electronic and print media would help in bringing about a consensus and a new perspective on issues related to the freedom of press.

Lauding the development of the media and entertainment industry in the country, the Minister said the media landscape had placed India in an exciting position globally where growth was robust with over 82000 publications and 800 channels in the broadcast media. The Media and Entertainment Sector in India grew at 11.2 per cent in 2010. The Minister spoke of the need to focus on celebrating with pride the diversity of India while at the same time appreciating the richness of Indian culture.

MUMBAI: Kolkata Knight Riders has bolstered its squad by signing up four domestic cricketers -- Debabrata Das and Iresh Saxena from Bengal, Saurashtra?s Chirag Jani and Kerala?s Sanju Samson.

The 25-year-old Das, an aggressive middle-order batsman and a part time wicketkeeper, had represented the franchisee in the 2008 season also.

Saxena (27), who is a left-arm spinner, was an integral part of the Bengal side in all the three versions of the game this season and has also played an instrumental role in Bengal?s triumph in the domestic T20 tournament for the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy last season.

Jani, a 22-year-old all-rounder, had a fruitful season for his state this year, averaging 119 with a strike rate of over 100. The 17-year-old Samson has been a part of KKR?s development plans for more than three years and promises to be a good wicketkeeper and a middle-order batsman.

MUMBAI: TV18 Broadcast is snapping up Ramoji Rao-owned Eenadu TV to expand its regional broadcasting presence that is confined to Marathi news at this stage.

A formal announcement is expected soon, according to sources familiar with the development.

ETV?s talks with Sony proved inconclusive. Sources confirmed that Sony pulled out of the deal as the global major found the valuation too high. Sony was involved in an all-cash deal but did not agree on the valuation of Rs 25 billion for the regional entertainment channels (news was out of the ambit).

The acquisition of ETV Network (TV business) will give TV18 Broadcast a quick presence across all important regional markets of India, barring Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

"This ensures that TV18 does not have to launch green-field operations and fragment the market further. TV18 will be able to effectively compete with its 3 biggest rivals - Star, Sun and Zee - across various markets as ETV‘s portfolio is fairly good in terms of ratings. This could also help in driving carriage charge synergies as TV18 will now become a much larger bouquet. Content can obviously be leveraged across languages," a media analyst at a local broking firm said on condition of anonymity.

The acquisition will be partly funded through a rights issue. As the enterprise valuation of ETV is expected to be above Rs 20 billion, the market is predicting a part-cash, part stock deal.

ETV?s annual revenue is around Rs 5 billion. "Some speculators are saying that the valuation is around Rs 25 billion. That is about five times the revenue of ETV and seems too high. This may mean a part-cash deal," the analyst said.

TV18 has a market cap of Rs 10.31 billion.

A deal with ETV will possibly spoil Network18?s joint venture with Sun Group for channel distribution. But if it goes unscathed (just as the Zee-Star distribution deal), the bouquet will become formidable.

TV18 Broadcast runs four news channels (CNBC TV18, CNBC Awaaz, CNN-IBN, IBN 7) and has a 50 per cent stake in Viacom18 (which runs Hindi GEC Colors and channels such as MTV, VH1, Nick and Sonic) and owns 50 per cent in IBN Lokmat (Marathi news channels). Network18 also has interests in Internet, print (magazines) and home shopping.

ETV Network has the largest coverage of India in terms of regional channel portfolio with presence across South India to UP. It runs 12 channels and all its channels carry news content (for at least ? an hour) along with entertainment content depending on geography.

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