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Speaking to a select band of journalists at the Carlton on the
Croisette in Cannes during MipCom a short while ago, he said: "I'd
like to see him as CEO of BSkyB. But I guess he will have to go
through the process. The nominating committee. We figure it will
be all right."
He pointed out that it was indeed ironic that such a ruckus was
being raised about the younger Murdoch's candidature. "There's a
fair bit of noise now. But let everyone remember: News Corp will
not put in an inferior candidate. Sobreriety is needed."
Referring to the BBC, Chernin said he did not think the British
pubcaster was right to launch unencrypted in the UK. "BBC should
be concerned about content, they are such a strong content creator
themselves. Their moves are very short sighted. We are not happy
at all. In fact, we were shocked. We will investigate every possibility
to stop this. Issue an injunction, stop selling shows. Remember
we have a long standing relationship with the BBC. They have been
buying a lot of our shows, The Simpsons, etc."
Chernin also sounded irritated when informed about Zee TV chairman
Subhash Chandra's foray into DTH (Zee's Dish TV soft-launched on
2 October). "Who says Zee TV has launched DTH? There have been announcements,
but where is it?" he asked. When told that it was a soft launch
he said, "I don't see it going into hard launch very soon."
For us, India is among the more attractive DTH markets in the world.
"It is amongst the fastest growing pay TV markets," he pointed out.
"We would like to be there. We are happy about our Star Asia operations,
both in India and China. More particularly India because it is making
profits and contributes revenues," he added.
That should be music to Star India CEO Peter Mukerjea and COO Sameer
Nair's ears.
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