Murdoch mania still is hot in town as speculation about what he really intends to do in the Indian market rising to a fever pitch. He had a rash of meetings on 14 March with top brass industrialists and other prominent political personalities.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and he discussed the possibilities of investment in the Infotech and telecom area. Ministerial sources disclosed his intentions to set up a state-of-the-art fibre optic telecom carrier network in Mumbai. A possible partner for this project is InCable which has been laying a fibre optic network in the city. Star TV does not have any investments in cable TV distribution, having sold out its holdings in Siticable to Zee TV. The fibre optic project will l cater to Murdoch‘s Infotech dreams in India and facilitate e-commerce and e-education and create tremendous job opportunities, ministerial sources said.

News Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch seems to have made a lot out of his Mumbai visit. The media baron held a series of meetings in Mumbai. He touched base with his old friends, colleagues, to-be business partners, ex-partners, and important local political heavyweights.

On Tuesday morning, he had a meeting with Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, wherein he reiterated his commitment to further his investments in Maharashtra, and also voiced his interest in taking part in the information technology revolution that the new NCP government is trying to bring into the state. The meeting was followed by an impromptu press conference.

The shrewd businessman has made sure to make the most out of his India trip and he is expected to make big announcements within a few

Intersputnik‘s Express-6A satellite was launched successfully on 12 March (Moscow Time). The satelllite to be located at 80 degrees East, is positioned as a bird that will significantly improve communications capacity across Russia and was lifted off Kazakhstan‘s Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard a Proton launch vehicle. Under an agreement with the Russian Satellite Communications Company (RSCC), Intersputnik will utilize the major part of Express-6A‘s 17 transponder strong C- and Ku-band relay capacity.
Express-6A will replace the aging Express-6 spacecraft currently in orbit and allows Intersputnik‘s customers to use earth stations without tracking systems, and providing a higher quality of services.

"The successful launch of Express-6A is the next step in modernizing Intersputnik‘s communications system," Gennady Kudryavtsev, Intersputnik‘s Director General, said. "The new Express-A series of spacecraft provides a longer service life, more capacity and higher radiated power. Express-6A will carry all of the television channels currently handled via Express-6, and also will be used for new digital communications and broadcasting channels including relay in Ku-band."

In addition to traditional services such as analog broadcasting and public switched telephone networks, Express-6A also will provide such services as digital television and radio broadcasting, Internet access and dedicated corporate VSAT-based Ku-band networks. Users of the Express-6A include such Russian television channels as TV-6, TV-Centre, AST; large telecommunications network operators (Rustel); dedicated networks operators (Insat, Sirena), and telephone companies from Intersputnik‘s member nations.

The second satellite in the new Express-A series is Express-3A, which is to be launched in June and positioned at 11 degrees West. This spacecraft will replace the aging Statsionar-11 (Gorizont-26) satellite. Express-3A will allow Intersputnik to offer more satellite channels to telecommunications companies interested in transAtlantic traffic.

Russia‘s Krasnoyarsk-based NPO PM is prime contractor for the Express-A-series satellites. The satellite bus is developed by NPO PM, while Alcatel Espace of France supplies the payload.

Sony Entertainment Television officially launched Max, its films, sports and events channel at a glittering bash in Mumbai‘s Oberoi Hotel on 10 March. Set CEO Kunal Dasgupta says that the channel has acquired the best of films for airing in the coming year. Hindi blockbusters like Hum Dil de Chuke Sanam, and even more importantly the biggest hit of the year "Kaho Na Pyaar Hain" which is still running to packed houses in India. "We have acquired a library of 800 movies for the channel.. and it‘s a fare that will attract audiences," says Dasgupta. "This apart also we have got one day cricket in Sharjhah, in March end, the cricketnext.com cup in Bangladesh, and other matches too." Apart from cricket special events around singing stars Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhonsale, among others are planned.

"The key words are maximum movies, maximum cricket, maximum events - Max," says Kacon Sethi, who heads Max.

The launch event was attended by a galaxy of television and film personalities: Jackie Shroff, Bhagyashree, Salil Ankola, video rights king Raman Maroo, one of the Taurani brothers, Rajiv Kapoor, Archana Puran Singh, Simone Singh, Fahad Samar, Jaaved Jaffrey, Ravi Behl, Mark Masceranhas, Krishen Kumar of T-Series, Mahesh Anand, Sonu Nigam, et al.

Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corp, which holds a 37 per cent stake in the Ronnie Screwvala promoted United Television (UTV) is negotiating with Screwvala to retain a stake in his company.News Corp had a 49 per cent stake in UTV prior of selling a 12 per cent stake off to Warburg Pincus which already held 24 per cent of holding in the company. The deal reduced Murdoch‘s stake to 37 per cent and he last year, had announced to sell it off to Mr Screwvala. Now Murdoch is in talks with Screwvala to retain 15 per cent stake in UTV. UTV will be listing on Indian brouses by May-June this year.

After his increased interest in India, Murdoch seems not willing to give up his stake in the huge media house UTV. News Corp is already getting ready to capture a market share in India in the era of convergence by plans to acquire Internet companies, ISPs and telecom companies as well as creating portals. Already having a chunk of the television market through its subsidiaty Star TV, News Corp wants to get deep in the convergence market. Since content would be an important issue in the forthcoming world of broadband, Murdoch won‘t like to give up his whole stake in the company which is rich in content and which could add value to his holding.

Incidently, Murdoch would visit Mumbai this weekend where UTV is based. But the exact purpose of his visit is still unknown and this could be a part of his agenda.

Adults beware, because kids have a mind of their own. This is one of the conclusions that one could draw from the recent study conducted by Cartoon Network in association with ACNielsen in the Asia Pacific region.
The study called New GenerAsians surveyed over 7700 children aged 7-18 living in 29 cities across Asia Pacific. It surveyed over 2000 kids from ten cities in India alone, more than any other country in the region. According to Anthony Dobson, Executive Director of Research & Strategic planning for Turner Entertainment Networks Asia, this was because "The sample size was not based on the population per se. India is the most culturally diverse country than any other in the region. There are more languages spoken here, more than China. Hence the larger sample size from India." The cities, which were part of the study, were Ahemdabad, Banglore, Culcutta, Chennai, Cochin, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kanpur, Ludhiana and Mumbai.

Some of the results were indeed startling, especially from the Indian kids. They revealed a strong preference for desi brands. Out of the 18 product categories researched top ten brands that enjoyed the strongest brand equity among the Indian kids are local. When asked what their favourite brands were in categories like jeans, shoes, chips, watches etc the answers were: Titan watches, Ruf ‘n Tuf jeans, Uncle chipps, Action shoes, Boomer Chewing Gum, Maruti car and Action Sportswear in their respective categories. This is in stark contrast with the rest of the region where the top spot is occupied by foreign brands. International brands that figure in the top ten for brand recall among kids in India include Cadbury, Pepsi and Kwality Wall‘s.

And parents need not worry either because at 90%, Indian Kids have a much higher aspiration for achieving good grades and getting admission in a reputed college/university as against only 66% of kids from rest of the region.

The Internet usage among the kids in India, even though low compared to the rest of the region, has gone up considerably. Only 1% of Indian kids use Internet and they use it mostly for checking exam results and playing games.

If anything the only problem with this survey could be that the sample size could be a bit less considering the fact that only 7700 kids were surveyed in the whole of Asia Pacific region