| MUMBAI:
With the World Cup scheduled to kick off later this month, Sony is ready with
a few plans up its sleeve. One of these involves adding a value added feed for
direct-to-home (DTH) and Cas (conditional access system) subscribers.
Addressing a media briefing this afternoon Sony Entertainment
Television (SET) India CEO Kunal Dasgupta says that the channel
is looking at having two angles - stumps and mid wicket. They
are also looking at making this interactive feed available
in Cas homes. "The coverage from different camera angles
will help DTH. We are also in talks with multi-system operators
(MSOs) to offer this to their set-top box subscribers,"
Dasgupta adds.
SET India has sold out
its entire inventory for the World Cup and expects an all-time high audience for
the big event with the matches favourably positioned for prime time viewing in
India. The company had earlier indicated that it was targeting Rs 5 billion in
ad revenues from the ICC Championship and World Cup. The matches will not
be shown on flagship Hindi general entertainment channel Sony TV (they will be
telecast on Max, Sab and Pix) as the cricket telecast will disrupt viewing of
its tradional programming content. Instead, the movie list on the Sony channel
will be enhanced during the World Cup. "We are in the process of rebuilding
Sony TV which has slipped from its number two position. When we put up matches
on the channel in the last World Cup, we suffered. We won't make that mistake
this time. We are getting Indian Idol back and in the coming three to four months
we will be coming out with new shows that we are confident will see the channel
move up," says Dasgupta. Sab TV, which Sony acquired to have a two-channel
strategy in the general entertainment space, will be relaunched after the World
Cup. In terms of viewership, Dasgupta says that the number of C&S homes
have more than doubled from 32 million when the previous World Cup took place
in 2003 in South Africa. DTH platforms will also give a boost. "There is
a strong lead in which was not the case in South Africa where matches started
at 2:30 in the afternoon." He adds that this time there will be a
lot of out of home viewing as the match starts at 7 pm. Already 70 organisations
have asked Sony for permission to air matches during parties. "Places like
Goa will have a carnival atmosphere. The trend will be for people to watch matches
till late in the night. The World Cup will really kick off from 23 March when
India plays Sri Lanka." Dasgupta, however, was critical of the high
acquisition cost for cricket properties. "As a standalone, it is a loss leader
in the portfolio. You take it to boost other areas of the network like distribution
and weaker properties." In terms of ad revenue Sony recently came out
with a 12 match package for spots. This involves the India games, the semi finals
and the final. The other spots package it offers to advertisers is for the final
27 matches. Doordarshan will get to telecast 19 (including the India contests,
semi-finals and final) out of the 51 World Cup matches. | 
