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"SET India executives came to us late Saturday and opened
up talks on restoration of the Sony bouquet feeds for Win Cable in
Delhi. We told them that they had switched us off, so first the
service should be restored before talks can be taken forward," a
senior executive of Win Cable told indiantelevision.com.
SET
distribution head Shantonu Aditya, meanwhile, while refusing to
discuss specifics, said that an agreement had been reached that was
agreeable to both parties.
The Win
Cable executive, however, said that the services were restored on
Sunday, much to the relief of Win subscribers here, "without payment
of any amount of money as had been demanded by SET India."
SET
India had demanded about Rs 2.5 million from Win-Hathway in Delhi
for the feeds of the Sony bouquet recently, which was opposed by the
multi-system operator, subsequent to which SET switched off the feed
to the MSO.
A
meeting between SET and Win Cable relating to the Delhi episode is
slated to be held sometime next month.
Meanwhile, an official spokesperson for Star India confirmed
that raids had been conducted in Delhi on cable operators who
happened to be Zee group cable arm Siti Cable franchisees on
Saturday because they were airing pirated signals of Star and
re-distributing them to their subscribers. The spokesperson,
however, refused to divulge any more details.
Siti
Cable, in an official response has refuted the charges, saying only
one operator was showing the Star Channel and that too through a
direct arrangement from the adjacent cable operator in the vicinity
and had made financial arrangements accordingly.
But
industry sources here said the genesis of the raids lay in the
switching-off of two head ends of Siti Cable in West Delhi, Paschim
Vihar & Janakpuri (9th September night) for upgradation of paid
subscribers. As a protest Siti Cable had "blacked out" all Star
channels in Delhi. About a week before that Haryana Communications
was switched off due to an issue of default in payment.
It has
also been indicated that before the switch-off, in order to
rationalize the subscriber base of Siti Cable Networks in Delhi,
which Star feels is long overdue, talks were initiated with the
headends concerned and meetings were held not only with Siti Cable's
JV's but also with the senior management of Siti Cable. The meetings
were not fruitful for the company as the results were way below
Star's expectations. As a result, Star India had to go for a
switch-off.
Admitting that some franchisees may have been airing pirated
signals of Star, a senior executive of Siti Cable today said, "Raids
cannot be a precursor to talks which is aiming at solving the
matter, not complicating it. If Star continues to be arrogant, then
we don't see a solution very soon."
The
Siti Cable executive also maintained that Star raids also included
some cable operators who had "duel feeds."
Industry sources alleged that subsequent to the switch-off,
Star channels were being pirated by some Siti Cable franchisees all
across Delhi.
Left
with no option, Star India decided to conduct anti-piracy raids to
ensure that its channels were not pirated on the networks
switched-off. A plan was chalked out with the distributor to conduct
raids on the Siti Cable franchisees in Paschim Vihar.
Three
franchisees were raided for pirating Star channels and the raids
were conducted by Star's distributor M/s Shiv Enterprises, along
with lawyers and the local police.
Two
persons have been arrested and booked under section 37, 51 and 63 of
the Copyrights Act and a third person has been declared absconding.
The equipment being used for piracy has also been seized. An FIR
(No. 540/2002) has been lodged with the Paschim Vihar Police Station
in New Delhi against the three networks. The three networks raided
are Universal Cable, Amba Cable, and Galaxy Cable.
The
raids seem to have sent a clear message in the market that Star is
in a no-nonsense mood. But for the Delhi cable viewers, these
face-offs only mean doing without their favourite
programming.
SITI CABLE SAYS READY FOR INDEPENDENT AUDIT
OF ITS BOOKS
This is what Siti Cable had to say regarding the
charges brought against it by Star:
Siti Cable has been the
leading MSO in the city of Delhi and in Northern India. It has been
bringing different channels to the houses via its franchise cable
operators. However, in recent times Star TV has been demanding more
& more subscription revenue by either increasing its rates which
have increased from Rs. 5/- a few years back to Rs 40/- or by
increasing the number of subscribers it is being paid for by Siti
Cable.
Siti Cable would like to clarify here that it has been
paying more than its paid connectivity to Star allegations by Star
that Siti Cable is paying only 20 per cent is not correct and the
fact is that Siti Cable is paying for 120 per cent of its paid
connectivity to Star. Effectively, the channel is costing Siti Cable
not Rs. 40/- as being mentioned by Star but Rs. 58/-.
Siti
Cable on various open forums has always been inviting Star to come
and have a look at its books through any independent reputed audit
firm, something Star has been evading. Star has been taking hiding
under the cover of IRS figures which are merely an estimate and a
tool to market the channels to the advertising fraternity, whereas
the records reveal the actual facts.
It is our endeavour to
bring to the viewers the entertainment they desire at a right cost
and it is an international norm that Content Providers are entitled
to 30 per cent of the subscription revenue and balance 70 per cent
is attributed to the distribution elements in the value chain. The
scenario in the Indian context is entirely reverse. Here the content
provider charges 120 per cent of the published rates and leaves the
distribution chain to fend for itself. Today the cost of delivery of
pay channels from Siticable to its franchisees is Rs 240/- per
subscriber per month and does not includes the entertainment tax,
service tax and other maintenance costs of the end operator.
Siti Cable has been advocating the cause of introduction of
Conditional Access System which will bring in transparency and will
end the day-to-day disputes between the content provider and the
operators. This persistent dispute deprives the consumer of his/her
right to pay for what they watch and thus reduce the outflow from
the consumers. Everyone is privy to the happening in Parliament on
the CAS bill which was sabotaged by patronising the political
parties in this regard.
Siti Cable has switched off Star from
its network in Delhi and is keeping the Star channels off in its
networks in northern India from 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm as a mark of
protest against Star's high handedness and insensitive attitude
towards consumers' needs and the cable operator fraternity. The
other MSO of the area has also joined in this as they are also being
extorted.
Some raids were facilitated on few cable operators
with the help of local police by Star TV distributors with an
allegation of picking up the signals of Star from the line of
adjacent cable operator. Siti Cable has made inquiries and found
that only one cable operator was showing the Star Channel with
direct arrangement from the adjacent cable operator in the vicinity
and had made financial arrangements accordingly.
About
200 franchisee of Siti Cable and other cable operators of Delhi had
visited the Siti Cable office in Delhi and had pledged that they are
not in a financial position to continue the arrangement with Star
and impressed upon us that cancelling the agreement of Siti Cable
Distribution Companies with Star despite was the only option. This
was despite Star's threat to sponsor new cable operators who have
the muscle power in their respective areas.
We hope Star
will soon come forward in appointing an auditor of repute to audit
our records, which will put paid to the extortionist behaviour in
the industry & bring in transparency as a whole.
.
Sony, Star switch off feeds in
Delhi
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