Now that News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch has had to bow out of the race to acquire to DirecTV from General Motors, it may well be that he will be turning his attention with renewed vigour to India.
News Corp said on Saturday it was withdrawing its proposal to take Hughes Electronics and its DirecTV arm after parent General Motors failed to choose a buyer at its board meeting earlier in the day.

This cleared the way for EchoStar Communications, the company that runs Dish Network, to reach a deal on Sunday where it will be buying Hughes for approximately $25.8 billion.

If the buyout goes through, Echostar is poised to become the leading US provider of home satellite TV service. With 10 million subscribers, DirecTV is the largest provider of home satellite television service in the US. EchoStar‘s Dish Network is a distant No. 2 to with 6.7 million. The combined 16.7 million subscribers would be slightly fewer than those of AT&T, the leading cable TV provider in the US, agencies report.

Coming back to India, Jagdish Kumar, executive vice-president (digital platform group), Star, a key member of the team headed by Altaf Ali Mohammed set up for Star‘s DTH operations in this country, was recently quoted as saying that if the government allows third-party uplinking, the service could be up and running by March next year.

Another possibly related development is that after talking about it for a while now, government Internet gateway provider Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) is going ahead full steam with its plans to enter the DTH service segment. It is also looking at kicking off its DTH operations by March next year.

According to press reports, it has appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as an advisor to look into the modalities and the VSNL board was scheduled to discuss the issue at a meeting in New Delhi today.

It has always been the contention of indiantelevision.com that VSNL is the most likely of the DTH wannabes to partner Star on a common platform if and when it takes off in India. That looks more and more likely now, especially since information and broadcasting minister Sushma Swaraj is reportedly quite positive about DTH services launching in India soon.

The whole issue is likely to get added urgency in the wake of Murdoch‘s losing his potential "jewel in the News Corp crown" in DirecTV. If he had succeeded there he would have planted his DTH flag in America to complement his service in Europe - BSkyB. With India and China being the two other frontiers where Murdoch has sizeable populations for a potentially successful DTH service, it is but natural that his attention would be turned there.

China is not seen as a very good prospect because of government restrictions. In India, the government has been making all the appropriate noises and with the communications convergence bill awaiting passage through parliament, the climate is possibly more amiable for pushing through DTH than at any time before.

All things considered, it may well turn out that India SkyB gets "A" priority treatment now.

ESPN STAR Sports will launch its first joint venture led dedicated sports cable channel in Korea on November 1.

Known as MBC-ESPN Sports, the channel will be an entirely localised sports service that delivers live and exclusive coverage of major sports events, launched in association with Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation. This includes seven live and exclusive games per week of Major League Baseball (MLB) and two live and exclusive games per week each from the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the Korean Football League.

MBC-ESPN will also air coverage of the Korean Open Golf Tournament, Korean Intercontinental Football and the ATP Tour. This is in addition to popular ESS programs such as the English Premier League and UEFA Champions‘ League. Transmitted entirely in Korean, MBC-ESPN‘s localized programming includes on-air presentation, commentary, graphics and dedicated promos. ESS will provide sports programming on MBC-ESPN while MBC provides the on-the-ground production facilities needed to customize and re-transmit the locally versioned feed from Seoul.

ESS officials say, "We began by launching dedicated feeds to key Asian markets, followed by versioning our programming to the local language. We‘ve now taken it a step further by working with the strongest local partners in Korea who have the resources and expertise to help us continue providing compelling sports programming to our viewers, expertly localised." MBC-ESPN is the ninth feed of ESS and the fifth feed of ESPN in Asia.

Bowing to a long-standing demand from the industry that there should only be one rating system, market research agencies AC Nielsen‘s TAM Media Research and ORG MARG‘s INTAM today set in motion the process that will see the merger of their operations through a joint venture with a single currency by the middle of next year.
The transaction is expected to close by the end of this year. The new venture will combine local TV ratings data from TAM Media, a 50-50 joint venture between AC Nielsen and KMR/IMRB, with data from ORG-MARG, a VNU company, in a single service across India. The combined TV ratings service will be one of the world‘s largest to use advanced people meter technology, a joint press release states.

When contacted LV Krishnan, president TAM India, confirmed he would be heading the combined service.

Speaking to indiantelevision.com, Gautam Mitra, general manager, INTAM, clarified that the two organisations would not be merged. What would happen was that there would be a consolidation of the databases of the two bodies so that a single consolidated rating system would be operating rather than the current two.

The new joint venture will also be the leading provider of advertising expenditure information in India, covering more than 90 per cent of the country‘s TV and press advertising spending, the release says.

Responding to worries in the industry that there could actually be a reduction in the total coverage as one system would be discontinued, Gautam Mitra, general manager, INTAM, denied any such decision had been made. He, however, admitted that a major issue that needed sorting out was how to introduce compatibility into two systems that are currently incompatible. INTAM uses picture matching technology for their people meters while TAM uses a frequency system.

Mitra added that places of coverage in the new dispensation would have to be thought through. When the people meter lists in Mumbai and Chennai were systematically leaked recently, an issue that had caused much heartburn was the selection of samples for the different socioeconomic categories. The charge was that too often there was a mismatch witnessed.

Queried as to whether this move was a prelude to the merger of the two companies, Krishnan was noncommittal. Official line notwithstanding, it does look distinctly possible that by the middle of next year, there will not only be one rating system, but one company as well.

The Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) has barred airtime sellers and production houses from becoming board members in the association. They will also not be allowed to become primary members, but will be allowed to function as associate members.

The resolution to this effect was passed by the IBF at its latest extra ordinary general meeting held last Wednesday. The board of directors will now be restricted to broadcasting companies.

One person who would have been directly affected by the ruling is Harish Thawani, chairman, Nimbus Communication, but he resigned much before the proposal to change the membership norms was put forth. When contacted, Thawani said he resigned because he was not able to devote any time as he was constantly travelling. Queried on the new ruling, Thawani said it was up to the IBF to make its own decisions.

The decision is seen as a firm move by the IBF to focus on major issues faced by the broadcasters. Recently, it had taken a strong stance to protect the broadcasters? interests against default of payment by advertising agencies.

Explaining the move, an IBF board member said when the body was formed, airtime sales agents were an intrinsic part of the negotiating process, especially as regards dealings with national broadcaster Doordarshan. This had more or less fizzled out and so changes were required which reflected the current status of the industry.

According to sources, airtime sellers and production houses feel that there is no reason for them to drop out of the IBF so long as their interests are represented in the association.