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Talks between
Sony Entertainment Television and Aaj Tak are stuck, as the news
channel from the India Today stable has stalled its plans to enter
overseas markets. While Sony is keen on distributing the news channel
in India as part of its bouquet, Aaj Tak wants the tie up primarily
for the global market. “We wanted to take Aaj Tak to the US,
UK and the Middle East through the Sony network, but we have put
on hold our expansion plans, as we want to currently consolidate
our position in India. We are not proceeding with the talks at this
stage,” said TV Today Network executive director and chief
executive officer G Krishnan.
SET India CEO
Kunal Dasgupta agreed that the two companies had not made much progress
in entering into a distribution agreement. “The management
at Aaj Tak has to make up its mind whether they want to encrypt
the channel. Besides, they are interested about getting the channel
distributed internationally. We are keen on the Indian market, though
we are also interested in the overseas distribution,” he said.
Aaj Tak has also stalled its plans to launch an English feed. “It
is not in our immediate plans. We are putting our resources and
efforts on covering the war against terrorism. But we see an opportunity
in an English news channel,” he said. While BBC and CNN are
international channels, Star News is the only local channel addressing
this audience. Aaj Tak was also in talks with Sony for sharing the
platform in the direct-to-home (DTH) business. However, there has
been no development in DTH the business yet to accelerate the process
of pulling the two companies together. Aaj Tak sees the war in Afghanistan
as an opportunity to increase viewership and stay a free-to-air
channel to augment its reach. Krishnan said the channel was ahead
of Zee News in ratings, according to TAM and Intam data. “We
were down for just one week, when the time spent on our channel
was two minutes less than Zee News, as indicated by Intam. But we
are back to leadership position. According to TAM, we have always
been ahead in ratings in the coverage of the war in Afghanistan.”
The distribution realignment is yet to take place as talks between
AOL-Time Warner and Sony have not matured. “There is no movement
on the talks, but we have not called off the discussions,”
said Mr Dasgupta. Aaj Tak would give Sony a general news channel
in its bouquet. It already distributes a business channel, CNBC.
Rival companies Star and Zee run their own news channels. * * *
Star World to air Temptation Island Star World, the English channel
of the Star TV network, is planning a programming initiative with
the launch of a couple of popular shows. The channel will air Fox’s
international reality show Temptation Island from November 22. Industry
sources say this is one of the biggest initiatives on Star World.
Temptation Island is also aired on Sky One and Channel 4 in Britain.
The original length of the US version is a six-part series while
the Britain version has twelve parts. The series aired in Britain
was adapted to suit the local audiences, sources confirmed adding
that Star World will air the original US version. “Star World
has zeroed in on the 10 pm time band for the reality show”,
confirmed sources. Temptation Island, added sources, will be a one
hour show and will be aired every Thursday. Star World will also
be launching its latest version of Friends in November. When contacted
LS Nayak, executive vice president, sales & marketing, Star
India Ltd, confirmed that Temptation Island and the new series of
Friends will be aired but declined to elaborate on the details.
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