Is Disney getting into the Indian market? We have been hearing reports that the company is in conversation with Star TV to distribute the channel in India. Star TV is believed to be open to even holding back the launch of FoxKids in the Indian market for Disney‘s sake.
Apparently, Sony has also thrown its lot into the fray though senior officials within Sony deny it. Sony is looking to create a bouquet which will rival the offerings of Star TV and Zee TV and is hence hungry to strike a deal. But what could queer the pitch for Sony is the partnership between ESPN - owned by Disney - and Star for their sports channels in India, ESPN and Star Sports. On that record, Star TV looks set to get the mandate to distribute the channel in India.

Disney has been known to blow hot and cold on India. In the mid-1990s it was all ready to storm Indian TV screens but decided against it as it felt that pay television revenues were not worth the effort and that the market had not matured enough for tiered television. Then a year ago it announced that it would not like to miss out on the Indian market which was growing rapidly. And hence dialogue commenced once again. Disney has a cursory presence in India with branded programming blocks on DD, Zee TV, among others. Disney is looking hot once again. But who knows when it will rurn cold.

The channel officials said that they have pre-tested each of their programmes before commissioning them. The channel which has hi-tech studio facilities at Noida as well as Mumbai, says that it will avoid reruns as far as possible as it has 11 hours of daily fresh content. Sahara is placing a lot of emphasis on the look as well as quality of the channel. Plus many reputed TV producers & directors have been commissioned to make programmes for Sahara TV. According to the officials, the channel has also tried to create new genres of programming in order to provide freshness to the channel.
One more channel joins the entertainment bandwagon. Sahara TV was launched yesterday amidst much fanfare. And this one‘s claiming freshness in its content too.

When asked about the distribution network of the channel, a senior official said that "Sahara TV has the largest distribution team in the television industry. We have worked out a comprehensive support plan for cable distributors, which include ready information on equipment upgradation, easy finance schemes and a helpline. Besides Sahara India Pariwar is a household name in the Hindi belt. Also our 6 lac committed workers as a part of the pariwar will help promote the channel all over the country. Thus we expect a cable penetration of 65% of the total 30-million C&S homes to start with." The channel is also looking at forming their own DTO bouquet and forging alliances with other channels. But first it will concentrate on its main entertainment channel.

The channel is also closely monitoring Internet as a powerful communication medium of the future.

 comprehensive report on the entertainment industry, the first of its kind, has been compiled by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) along with Arthur Anderson. The report reveals very positive and optimistic figures projected for the entertainment industry‘s growth. The media committee is headed by Lalit Modi and the members include Plus Channel‘s CEO Amit Khanna, Sone Entertainment Television‘s CEO Kunal Das Gupta and ESPN India Chairman Manu Sawhney along with representatives of film, music and entertaiment industry.
The report says that the Indian entertainment industry‘s turnover will touch Rs 650 billion in the year 2005 from the current Rs 150 billion. The television software industry is slated to grow to Rs 90 billion, music industry to Rs 22 billion from the current Rs 12.54 billion where as the live entertainment sector would be worth Rs 33.65 billion from the current Rs 2 billion.

The survey suggests private or progressive participation in Doordarshan. Other suggestions are as follows:

* Creating a special anti-piracy cell with the police department to combat the growing piracy menace.
* Developing closer association with international cells guarding against piracy and streamlining anti-piracy laws with that of US, UK etc.
* Bringing the industry in parity with the information technology sector with respect to overseas investment and stock listing norms.
* Providing stable legislation for the issue of radio broadcasting licences.
* Reviewing the functioning of the Censor Board in light of the changing scenario and citizens increasingly demanding the right to make their own decisions on entertainment.
* Issuing board regulations/guidelines for banks and financial institutions to facilitate lending to this intellectual property related industry.
* Reviewing archaic laws and onerous responsibilities cast on the industry particularly in the film exhibition and live entertainment sectors.

The Ficci has organised a conference on 30 March and 31 March, 2000 in Mumbai to discuss the problems faced by the entertainment industry. Industry bigwigs and political bigwigs are slated to attend the seminar.

The Sub-Group on Convergence headed by senior legal professional Fali Nariman, in its interim report, has recommended that so far as content of information is concerned, it is to be dealt with in the new Broadcasting Bill. Since Webcasting was not covered in the existing IT Bill of 1999, it suggests that the proposed Broadcasting Bill willl have to be revised to reflect advances and developnment of technology and internet which has made Webcasting possible.
It has recommended that the structural framework of the 1885 Indian Telegraph Act be retained as the New Telecom Policy has said that carriage of information should be left as open as possible. Any act should be enabling and it has suggested that a new Telecommunications Act be drawn up for the convergence era while the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 be repealed.

The sub-group has obtained views from consumers, industry, bulk users, security agencies and private telecom players during discussions with Department of Telecommunications. At the end of it all, the subgroup has defined who has the power to establish and maintain telecom, the obligations of service providers, the right of way, message interception, and dispute settlements.

The report claims to have been influenced by the major events taken place following the announcement of New Telecom Policy NTP, 1999 which includes the firm resolve of the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry to introduce a Broadcasting Bill in the next session of Parliament. The Bill will be on the lines of the Broadcasting Bill of 1997 which had lapsed on account of dissolution of Lok Sabha. Substantial ammendments will be made in the new bill to cover the entire content aspect of broadcasting including provisions for setting up of a seperate regulatory Authority.

Mumbai based broadband company Skynet Web TV Ltd is set to tap the Indian bourses with an Initial Public Offering (IPO) of the size of Rs 21 billion. Each equity share of the face value of Rs 10 would be priced at a premium of Rs 30 each. Aryaman Financial will be the lead manager for the issue.
The company headquartered in Mulund, the central suburb of Mumbai plans to offer broadband services through its entertainment portal on the Net and software services. The entertainment portal will be designed to supply rich media content (streaming technology) to netizens utilising both narrow and broadband connections. The site contains free and paid services. The free services consist of chat, e-mail, finance, classifieds, shopping & travel and paid service will consist webcasting movies and television serials.

The company targets the NRI community interested in viewing Indian movies and those who do not have access to cinema houses or other sources to see latest Hindi or other regional Indian language movies. The company will acquire rights for Hindi movies and television serials for webcasting. The streaming content can be viewed through 28.8 kbps and 56.6 kbps dial-up connections, DSL connections and Internet-over-cable TV.

The revenue model of the company comprises of a mix of ad revenues and subscription fees. The company will use the reputed international payment gateway Cyber Cash for clearing online transactions through credit cards. The company plans to charge an average US $ 5.00 per movie.

The Net is being slowly flooded with webcasting portals. How many of them will survive? Where will all the content come from? Skynet Web TV Ltd might face a similar problem of acquiring quality content. But the company seems to be determined to make it big.

Zee Telefilms is expected to launch its direct to operator (DTO) bouquet on 1 May. It was earlier slated to introduce the bouquet last year but could not meet its set deadline.
The management has announced that it has achieved a good response from the marketplace for its new channels - Zee Movies and Zee English.

It claims the sale of 1,100 decoders for Zee English and Zee Movies. Already 550 agreements have been signed. This figure excludes 140 decoders which have been distributed to 70 odd SitiCable MSOs. Zee sources claim to have signed on seven sub-operators of the rival cable network In CableNet in Mumbai for the two channels. More cable ops are being negotiated with and Zee claims to have achieved a penetration of 2.6 million cable homes. Zee English and Zee Movies have set a target of seven million cable TV homes and are confident of reaching the astronomical figure within three to six months.