Leading sports channel ESPN-Star is set to hike its package rate by 8.5 per cent to Rs16 per subscriber home from 1 January, 2001

The rates were separately pegged earlier. ESPN?s pricing of Rs 8.25 has been in force since October 1999 and Star Sports has been pegged at Rs6.50 since January 2000. Both channels will however continue to be available as stand alone services.

Cable operators were informed on 10 December about the porposed hike and have indicated they have no problems with the move. Pranesh Kerkar of Seven Star Cable Network said the hike would be absorbed by the operators, leaving subscriber rates unaffected.

ESPN-Star has lined up 225 days of live cricket coverage for 2001 which includes 70 one-day internationals.

The coverage will include India?s tour of Zimbabwe (two test matches), the India-Zimbabwe-West Indies Triangular series (7 one-day internationals), the Sahara Cup cricket (five internationals), and the India tour of South Africa (three test matches and 7 one-day internationals).

ESPN-Star will also cover the Pakistan, England and Australia Triangular One-day Series (10 one-day internationals) and the Australia Vs England Ashes Series covering 5 test matches.

The Zee Group, in a major restructuring bid as advised by AT Kearney, has brought all of its diverse activities and businesses under four broad categories - content, corporate, access and education. The company?s three lead businesses of content, access and education will have separate heads while support functions like strategy, human resources, finance, legal, corporate communications and marketing research will be handled by the head of corporate services.
At a lengthy open house meeting in Mumbai yesterday, company chairman Subhash Chandra and heads of businesses along with AT Kearney, elucidated the entire structure and strategy of the company, which they claimed, was to ensure a vision for a common pursuit, purpose and goal. In the new dispensation, Alok Dutta, Chief Operating Officer, will be coordinating the content businesses. He will oversee broadcasting, including the businesses of all the Zee Network channels, portals, music, news and sports. Dutta will report directly to Chandra.

R.K. Singh, who was the Chief Executive Officer and earlier responsible for all broadcasting has been designated Group Head of Corporate Services. He will additionally be overseeing international businesses that have been clubbed under the access environment.

Dev Naganand will head the access business which comprises all the distribution driven businesses, including the businesses of cable networking now renamed Home Networking (HN), Direct-to-Operators (DTO), Direct-to-Home (DTH), Internet ISP through cable and numerous other Internet and ISP driven businesses.

The fourth division, the company?s education business will continue to be headed by Uma Ganesh. Zee, the management points out, sees a distinct convergence potential in the education business so will be developing it accordingly.

A pro-active team for functions of finance and accounts, personnel, legal, planning and operations at the operative level will also support each Group Head.

Besides the restructuring of the organisation, AT Kearney has also recommended that Zee should focus on building some new core competencies into the organisation, with special emphasis on collaboration with outsiders, more external focus on learning from customers, competitors and partners, greater focus on employment development, more systematic resource-based management and greater transparency in dealing with shareholders, employees, etc.

The restructure also highlights the company?s new vision of ?network selling? as opposed to ?single channel? selling. While in the past, Zee emphasised on selling channels as individual single channels, today, in its new structure synchronised with this strategy, more emphasis will be on ?network selling?. The Zee Group, says it, will reorganise according to the AT Kearney structure immediately.

The management says that it is confident that the spotlight on the new structure will bring increased focus in the company?s approach to content creation, on the one hand and distribution, on the other, even as corporate services seeks to foster alliances with new partners and collaboration with business constituents with greater zeal and gusto.

Zee Telefilms on Friday denied press reports that it planned to drop 16 serials currently airing on the channel.
Sainath Aiyar, Head Corporate Communications, said there was no substance in the reports that said Zee was dropping the serials in an effort to get the punch back in its programme selection.

Falling ratings and the bad press and legal headaches surrounding the suspension of its failed game show Sawaal Dus Crore Ka (SDCK) have pushed Zee on the defensive and Aiyar was quite outraged by the number of ?uncorroborated? reports about the beleaguered channel which were circulating.

Indiatelevision.com put it to Aiyar that the lead time the channel had given itself to correct the inherent flaws in SDCK was way too short. It was pointed out to him that Jeeto Chappar Phaad Ke, Sony?s answer to Star TV?s Kaun Banega Crorepati gameshow, had been in gestation since August for a planned January release. According to press reports, the new avatar of SDCK is scheduled to go on air in the first week of January. Aiyar clarified that the new show would only be aired when the Zee team felt confident of its having the strength to sustain itself and that could be anytime in January, not necessarily in the first week.

Mumbai?s Mid-Day newspaper reported on Friday that the show was likely to finally reappear with a new name attached - Aao Chakkar Chalayen. As for who will host the show, the names doing the rounds other than Ashutosh Rana are: Dilip Kumar, Feroz Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Naseeruddin Shah and Madhuri Dixit.

Will the new improved SDCK really see the light of day in January? Or will Zee cut its losses and give the show a quiet burial? That is the real ?sawaal dus crore kA (Rs10 crore question).

A couple of months back, the Pakistan government had awarded Star TV a licence to sell and distribute its decoders, and its channels in that country. On 14 December, Star TV executives were left looking at the ceiling or their shoes as the government suspended that licence.
The reason: the management announced its eight channel bouquet will be sold at Rs 87 per subscriber. The government has objected to this saying Star TV has no right to to unilaterally fix subscriber tariffs on its own without consulting it as the licence conditions stipulate that tariff fixation should be decided appropriately.

Additionally, government officials point out that Star TV charges a much lower subscription fee from subscribers in India.

Where is Discovery India chief Kiran Karnik headed? The buzz is that Karnik, who announced yesterday that the network was looking for a replacement for him, may be promoted within Discovery International globally. His performance with Discovery‘s Indian operations has met with approval from Discovery‘s headquarters in the US.

A replacement is likely to be in place by May 2001 and Karnik is expected to continue with the company till then.

Hallmark Entertainment Network on Wednesday signed agreements with two new partners, Videoland in Taiwan and Korea‘s World Event Network Co. Ltd (WENTV). The move comes just weeks after Hallmark unveiled its extensive channel rebranding under the ‘Celebrate Life‘ tagline.

The addition of these partners adds to the four other affiliates that have joined Hallmark Entertainment Network over the last three months - Sri Lanka‘s Grant Cable (Pvt), Saarc Media Services Ltd. in Bangladesh, Macau Cable TV and Home Cable in the Philippines.

Videoland will distribute Hallmark on a 24-hour basis to Taiwan‘s 4 million cable TV homes - 80 per cent of the market‘s total TV households. Videoland will also represent Hallmark‘s advertising sales efforts in Taiwan from January 1, 2001.

Launched on October 1, WENTV is one of 15 new cable TV channels licensed by the Korean government. Under the terms of the agreement with Hallmark, WENTV will carry four hours of programming every night during primetime, from 8pm- midnight, beginning the last week of December. The programming will carry Korean subtitles in addition to an English-language soundtrack. WENTV currently has 1 million subscribers - around 60 per cent of Korea‘s cable TV homes.

Hallmark is attempting a major revamp as part of its effort to have a more significant presence in the Asian region.