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ZEE Telefilms
is considering the transfer of direct ownership of Zee TV and Zee
Cinema from Asia Today Limited (ATL), its wholly-owned subsidiary,
to an Indian registered entity as one of the options so that it
can uplink these prime channels from India.
The company
is seeking regulatory approvals from various authorities but is
yet to finalise on any one option. The options could be the merger
of ATL with Zee Telefilms or setting up a branch office of ATL in
India or transferring Zee TV and Zee Cinema from ATL to Zee Telefilms.
"We will
have to bring Zee TV and Zee Cinema under Zee Telefilms or ATL by
opening a branch office in India if we are to get permission to
uplink these two channels from the country. But we will need approvals
from various authorities," said Hitesh Vakil, director, finance,
Zee Telefilms.
Zee will need
to clear all syndicated loans of ATL. It will also need clearance
from Reserve Bank of India and the ministry. Though the company
has obtained permission to uplink seven of its channels from India,
the main channels Zee TV and Zee Cinema are not eligible as they
belong to the Hong Kong-based ATL which is not a registered company
in India.
Zee News, which
also belonged to ATL, will be transferred to Zee Telefilms. "We
were already uplinking Zee News from India. So it did not require
a special permission or regulatory approval," said Vakil.
Zee Telefilms,
which had sought uplinking of its seven digitally encrypted channels
from India, has also applied for permission for the southern language
channels, Bharathi and Kaveri. They are currently uplinked from
Singapore. "We couldn’t apply earlier as we were talking
with Asianet Media for a joint venture in the southern region. But
as the deal broke, we have applied now for the southern language
channels. We would like to uplink them in the first phase itself,"
said Vakil.
Zee Telefilms
will either merge Dakshin Media with itself or transfer the assets
and make it go defunct. The southern language channels will be operated
by ZTL.
The channels
uplinked from Singapore by ZTL subsidiary Expand Fast Holdings will
be operated by ZTL. These are Zee Music, Zed TV and the four language
channels. These were ZTL-owned brands which were licensed to Expand
Fast. "Once the uplinking starts, the licensing arrangement
will stop," said Vakil.
Zee’s
plan is to bring third party channels under Expand Fast for uplinking
in Singapore. Expand Fast has three transponders and a capacity
to uplink more than 20 channels. Zee English and Zee MGM will continue
to be uplinked from Singapore.
Zee Telefilms
had earlier sought for permission to uplink all its channels from
India but subsequently brought it down to seven channels because
of the policy restrictions. It also dropped its plans to directly
operate a teleport in India because of the foreign equity restrictive
clause. ZTL chairman Subhash Chandra has NRI status and owns around
59 per cent, which is not permissible for a teleport operator in
India.
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