MUMBAI: After Disney, it's Fashion TV. The Modi Entertainment Network, which has been instrumental in thwarting Disney's ambitious plans to enter India till today, now has a dispute on its hands with FTV Paris.
The dispute, according to a statement issued by Modi Entertainment's legal council, has arisen "on their agreement for distribution, marketing, ad sales, advertising, merchandising and licensing for which Modi has a sole and exclusive agreement for India and the SAARC region." The dispute came about due to FTV Paris transmitting the channel free to air on the Asiasat 2 satellite and entering into an ad sales and marketing partnership with Worldwide Channel.
Modi now claims that due to FTV not abiding by the fundamental premise of the agreement - that the signal must be encrypted, not free-to-air, Modi has approached the Delhi High Court which has granted an interim order on 19 May directing FTV Paris to abide by the existing agreement. Which means FTV Paris has to re-encrypt the signal immediately, and has been restrained from entering into any distribution, ad sales, marketing, merchandising and licensing agreements with anyone else for the entire region.
However, the statement claims, FTV Paris has continued to keep its signal free-to-air (FTA), since 17 April, 2003 despite the clear directions of the Delhi High Court order of 19 May, 2003. The Modis have now filed a further petition in the Delhi High Court, which will be heard next week.
Worldwide Channel, a part of the Worldwide Group, had issued a statement last week claiming that FTV had gone FTA (the channel is transmitted free to air on the Asiasat 2 satellite for the last one month) and that several new programming initiatives would be launched shortly.

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