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Close on the
heels of Channel-Nine and Sony Entertainment’s reported interest
in DD Metro slots up for sale, Zee Network indicated it was also
keen to make a bid, but only for the 7-9 pm prime time slot. When
contacted, Senior VP(marketing) for Zee Network Partho Sinha said
over phone, "We are positively disposed. I see no reason why
Zee should not make an expression of interest in that channel."
He said, "The Subhash Chandra-promoted company would place
a bid for only the 7-9pm slot, and was confident of turning up a
winner since it had a vast variety of content to leverage from."
"We have
a very large offering in terms of number of options for advertisers.
We can effectively leverage this strength," Mr Sinha said but
declined to reveal at what price Zee would place its bid. Mr Sinha
added, "We have looked at pricing of these slots. We have done
an analysis and the pricing which emerges is interesting."
Late last month
Prasar Bharati had invited bids for the prime time band of 7 to
10pm and for the 10pm to 0030am slot on DD Metro for a period of
three years. Dividing the time band into one-hour slots, it laid
the floor price of Rs 22.5 crore, Rs 32.5 crore, Rs 42.5 crore and
Rs 17.5 crore for the four hourly slots between 7pm to 11pm.
Programmes
in Hindi will be telecast between 7 to 10pm and are thereafter optional
with English till 0030 hrs. Bidders could apply either on an hourly
basis or for the entire three-hour slot of the 7 to 10pm time band.
ESPN
Star Sports to restore signals to INCablenet
Television
viewers can now watch the cricket match between India and Zimbabwe
as the Bombay High Court directed ESPN Star Sports to restore the
signals to INCablenet by 5 pm on June 12. INCablenet, however, will
have to pay for 1.75 lakh homes demanded by ESPN Software, to restore
the signal, till further order.
The Bombay
High Court in an interim order passed earlier has ordered INCablenet
to deposit in court a sum of Rs 4 lakh per month for additional
25,000 subscriber’s homes, over and above the Rs 24 lakh, which
the multi-system operator was paying under the contract for 1.5
lakh subscribers.
The High Court
further directed INCablenet to pay arrears for the months of May
and June 2001, a sum of Rs 48 lakh in three days and a sum of Rs
8 lakh for additional 25,000 connections for the two months to be
deposited in court in seven days. The court has permitted ESPN to
withdraw the aforesaid sum of Rs 8 lakh by furnishing an undertaking.
INCablenet will have to continue to pay for 1.75 lakh subscribers
till further orders in the aforementioned manner, an ESPN release
said.
ESPN Software had switched off both ESPN and Star Sports services
to INCablenet over the dispute on increasing the connectivity to
1.75 lakh homes. INCablenet, in a release, said that it is moving
against the similar action taken by Star TV’s arbitrary demands
for increasing the number of customers by more than 150 per cent
as stated by their Executive VP, Arun Mohan in an interview broadcast
by CNBC.
Mr Mohan, the
release added, had openly stated in his interview that it is their
intention to form a cartel of pay channels to extract higher charges
from TV viewers in India. INCablenet will be taking legal action
against such monopolistic actions of the pay channels, who are ganging
up to demand increase in subscription charges from subscribers.
Zee
to co-produce Hasil
Zee Telefilms’s
(ZTL) first venture with Vijay Jindal’s Karma Networks will
be a film. Karma Networks is the company recently floated by Mr.
Jindal where ZTL holds 20 per cent stake. It will jointly produce
Hasil, starring the latest heartthrob Jimmy Shergil. Archita Bhatt
will play the heroine, while Jatin-Lalit will be the music director.
"We signed
in March-end and went into production in May. We plan to complete
the movie in less than one year. It is a campus story and we are
using the emerging stars," said Mr. Jindal, who quit Zee’s
MD post last year. ZTL is also doing a joint film venture with Raman
Kumar’s Tracinema. The low-budget movie called Aur Phir is
planned for release in the first half of 2002.
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