• Zee

    Zee sets itself 60 days deadline to raise finances

    Aug 01, 2002

    Alarmed by the recent fall in stock prices, dismal Q1 results for the year 2000 - Zee reported a mere 5% increase in

  • Star Movies claims clear lead over HBO

    Submitted by ITV Production on Aug 01, 2002
    News Headline

    NEW DELHI: Which is the best of the lot? Star Movies, armed with TAM data, has claimed that it is dominating viewership (target group: C&S SEC AB 4+ homes, nine cities for Fri, Sat, Sun 1900-2400) for the weekend slot : in June, Star Movies had an audience share of 1.49, almost double of HBO (0.76), and far higher than the others like AXN (0.39), Zee MGM (0.24) and Hallmark (0.03) over the weekends.
    An official release states Star Movies beat HBO every week this year, across 15 markets. To buttress its argument the release makes the following points:
    ? Star Movies, early this year, was the top performing channel in India with this year‘s broadcast of the Oscars.

    ? It holds the ratings record for the top three movies Titanic, Jurassic Park and Lost World ever to air in India (see ratings chart)

    ? Watched by over 40 million people over the last three months.

    ? The channel reaches 3 out of 4 upmarket men with cable across the last quarter (April to June).

    ? The largest studio portfolio of any movie channel.

    ? Exclusive access to the most successful movie franchises of all time - James Bond and Star Wars films

    ? Exclusive rights to Live broadcast of the Oscars, and also some special events like World Heavyweight Championship Boxing (the Lewis Vs Tyson bout was shown on the channel).

    To read the full power point presentation made by Star Movies -

  • Star Movies claims clear lead over HBO

    Aug 01, 2002

    NEW DELHI: Which is the best of the lot?

  • BSkyB records big subscriber jump

    Submitted by ITV Production on Aug 01, 2002
    News Headline

    MUMBAI: Somebody‘s loss is usually someone else‘s gain. News Corp controlled British satellite TV operator BSkyB has reported a big jump in subscriber numbers built to an extent on the back of the April collapse of rival ITV Digital.
    BSkyB, Britain‘s number one pay-TV operator said it signed up 214,000 new subscribers. This takes its subscriber base to 6.1 million, well on course for its target of 7 million by the end of next year, Reuters has reported.

    BSkyB, 36 per cent owned by News Corp and chaired by Rupert Murdoch, is one of the core assets in the media tycoon‘s global satellite TV platform Sky Global.

    Also earlier this month, BSkyB secured a four-year contract with the English Football League to broadcast its matches for 95 million pounds. The contract was previously held by ITV Digital.

    In another positive development for BSkyB, the heavyweight title fight between Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson on 8 June has proved a knockout for the pay TV operator.

    BSkyB said quarterly annualised average revenue per direct-to-home subscriber (ARPU) in the three months to end June was ?347, an increase of 11 per cent over the three months ended 30 June 2001.

    The company said ARPU was calculated excluding pay-per-view revenues from the Lewis-Tyson fight to reflect the "one-off" nature of the event. Including these revenues, ARPU was ?352.

    Lewis beat Tyson in eight rounds in Memphis to retain his WBS and IBF world titles.

  • &B ministry pushes for re-listing of CAS Bill on nest week's RS agenda

    Submitted by ITV Production on Aug 01, 2002
    News Headline

    NEW DELHI: The information and broadcasting ministry has requested the business advisory panel of the Indian Parliament to re-list the Cable TV Amendment Bill 2002 on the agenda of the Rajya Sabha (Upper house) next week.
    According to I&B ministry officials, parliament‘s business advisory committee has been asked to have the Bill, which will facilitate implementation of conditional access systems (CAS) in the country, on the agenda of business to be discussed in the Rajya Sabha next week.

    Now it is to be seen whether the issue comes up in the Upper House next week or other issues like Kashmir and elections there and the Gujarat polls take precedence.

    However, government officials also indicated that I&B minister Sushma Swaraj has been unable to hold lengthy discussions with Opposition members as she had said would be done to apprise them fully of the need for CAS.

    The Opposition members are not opposed to the concept per se, but are saying that the issue should be discussed in detail before an okay is given. The government had intended to push through the Bill so that the implementation process could start after that.

    Last week the Opposition members had taken umbrage to the leaking to the media of details about the talks held between them and the government on the CAS issue.

    Briefing a select section of the Press last week, Swaraj had said that there were some "misconceptions" regarding the CAS issue amongst members of Parliament from the Opposition and that she was holding meetings with them to explain the whole issue.

    The Opposition members had also taken exception to some statements of the cable operators. The Opposition politician‘s contention was that they would not be blackmailed and pressurised to take a decision on an issue like CAS, which has generated a lot of heat and dust.

    Seeing the way the winds are blowing, the cable industry, which has most at stake in getting the Bill passed, has decided to change course as to its strategy. Realising that there is no getting around the fact that unless the opposition deadlock is resolved there is no way the Bill will clear the Upper House, cable operators met senior Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee yesterday to try and put across their side of the story.

    As far as the Left parties are concerned, they have one principal concern - that post-CAS subscribers will end up paying more for less. The cable ops had a meeting with CPM leaders yesterday in order to try and address the matter. Their point being that there would be different packages for different budgets and the pricing would be such as to cater to different budgets.

    Meanwhile, the fragile unity amongst cable operators, which had come to the fore on the face of stiff lobbying from some broadcasters against CAS, has once again been broken. A cable operators body, Cable Operators United Forum, formed very recently, is understood to have been dissolved.

    "The Cable Operators United Forum (comprising vocal cable operators having tacit support of MSOs like Siti Cable, Hathaway and INCablenet) as of now does not exist," Roop Sharma, one of the members of the Front told indiantelevision.com on Tuesday.

    However, some other members of the Front insisted that the body is still intact.

    But the cable operators have decided on one thing: no more blacking out of channels as was being done in the recent past. Not even a token protest of one-hour blackouts of cable services.

    If the Rajya Sabha does not okay the Bill, then another option before the government is to go in for an executive order (Ordinance) after this session of Parliament adjourns sometime mid-August.

    But in case of an Ordinance, the government has to convince the President that the issue is of national importance and cannot wait for the Parliament‘s nod for the next session.

    Can the government and Swaraj manage that? Only time can tell.

  • I&B Ministry

    I&B ministry pushes for re-listing of CAS Bill on nest week's RS agenda

    Aug 01, 2002

    NEW DELHI: The information and broadcasting ministry has requested the business advisory panel of the Indian Parliame

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