| HONG
KONG: Subhash Chandra, the founder and promoter of the Zee Group, has announced
that he would like to step down in a year or two to “do better things than
making money.” Chandra
was speaking with Turner International president (Asia Pacific) Stephen Marcopoto
at the Cable & Satellite Association of Asia (Casbaa) annual convention in
Hong kong, after receiving the award for ‘Lifetime Contribution to the Asian
Pay-TV Industry’.
“I
want to retire in a year or two,” Chandra said. He gave no details about
who would succeed him but when asked about his son Punit Goenka who is Zee Entertainment
Enterprises Ltd (Zeel) CEO, he said “I would not like to be in his shoes
as expectations of him are very high because he is my son, but he has shaped up
well.” On
the current scenario of Indian broadcast industry, Chandra was rather critical
saying that “executives are living week to week. Several of these players
are in one vertical and have parochial interests. They are not together . They
don’t have a long term vision and even the owners don’t know why they
are in business. This is a great business to be in, but it is in bad health. It
is running $200 million to $500 million in the negative every year, because we
are a divided bunch.” Chandra
said that he would like to heal his soul and indulge in socially meaningful activities
post-retirement.
About the future of Indian DTH sector Chandra said of the seven players existing
today, only four would survive. Of the 13-14 million DTH subscribers, almost 50-60
per cent have both a cable TV and DTH connection. ‘”I expect just four
players to survive. DD, two national players and one will be regional,” he
said. At
present, there are six private DTH platforms - Zee group’s Dish TV, Tata
Sky, Sun Direct, Big TV, Airtel Digital TV and Videocon Group’s D2H with
DD Direct being the seventh public sector platform. | 
