Mumbai: The promoters of Deccan Chronicle Holdings Ltd (DCHL), Hyderabad-based publisher of newspapers and owner of Indian Premier League (IPL) team Deccan Chargers, have pledged 54 per cent stake to Future Capital Holdings Ltd.

The promoter holding in DCHL at the end of June 2012 was 73.83 per cent with T Venkaram Reddy, T Vinayak Ravi Reddy and P K Iyet owning 24.61 per cent stake each, according to information on the National Stock Exchange.

In a filing to the stock exchanges, Future Capital Holdings said over 112.8 million shares (or 54 per cent) of DCHL have been pledged by the promoters as part of collateral for funds borrowed by DCHL and a company named, Aviotech Private Ltd. The amounts of borrowings by DCHL from Future Capital were not disclosed.

DCHL‘s annual report for 2011-12 is not available. According to the company‘s 2010-11 annual report, DCHL had loans of Rs 3.13 billion but also had cash and bank balances of Rs 7.03 billion as on March 31, 2011.

DCHL shares fell 19 per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange to close at Rs 18.55 per share on the pledging of a substantial portion of the promoter shareholding. DCHL‘s share price has fallen from a high of Rs 73.50 per share as on July 29, 2011.

The market value of the 54 per cent of the shares pledged works out to Rs 2.43 billion.

DCHL is the publisher Deccan Chronicle, a leading English newspaper in South India with a circulation of over 1.45 million copies per day across Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala. DCHL also publishes ‘Asian Age‘, an English daily newspaper in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, and London, a financial English daily ‘Financial Chronicle‘ from Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai and a Telugu Daily, weekly, monthly, all titled ‘Andhra Bhoomi‘ in Andhra Pradesh. DCHL also owns a chain of 50 retail stores of lifestyle products, including books, music, stationery, gifts, toys, pens, and eye ware.

MUMBAI: The BCCI will not allow Indian cricket players to participate in the Sri Lanka Premier League, a move seen as protecting the Indian Premier League from facing any competition whatsoever.

The BCCI?s main contention is that if it permits Indian players to play in the Sri Lanka league, then it may set a precedent for other leagues across the world.

Though a severe setback, Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) has decided to go ahead with the event with or without Indian partcipation.

SLC Secretary Nishantha Ranatunga said, "We will go ahead with the tournament with or without Indian players".

Ranatunga also said that SLC had not been officially told that Indian players would not take part in SLPL.

The league will take place in August before the Twenty20 World Cup. Last year the league did not take off as the BCCI did not allow Indian players to take part.

MUMBAI: Sporty Solutionz, the Delhi-based sports rights management company, has signed up Geo TV and Carlton Sports as official broadcast partners for the Indian Premier League in Pakistan and Sri Lanka respectively.

Sporty Solutionz had acquired IPL broadcast sub-licensing rights for the two territories from Multi Screen Media, the official broadcast rights holder of the tournament in Indian subcontinent.

The company has earlier successfully acquired the worldwide rights to market and license the Bangladesh Premier League in the event?s opening season. It also plans to invest into various other sports properties besides cricket.

MUMBAI: Former Indian Premier League (IPL) chairman Lalit Modi will be appealing against the High Court of London?s verdict in the libel case filed against him by ex-New Zealand captain Chris Cairns.

Modi has to lodge papers by 20 April. Modi lost a libel case to Cairns and was asked to pay 90,000 pounds in damages to the all-rounder.

Cairns had sued Modi over a tweet in which the latter accused the New Zealander of being involved in match-fixing during the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL) in 2008.

Meanwhile, Modi criticised the opening ceremony of the IPL held last night that had the likes of Katy Perry performing. He tweeted: "So according to IPL fans ? nearly 100% have Tweeted they would have preferred Pre Game Opening Ceremony rather than an opening like today. Can?t bear to watch it anymore ? as on TV it looks appalling. Was really looking forward to seeing something well presented. I am sure the Ratings will show."

MUMBAI: Even though Max is gearing up to launch the fifth season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) on 4 April, the Hindi general entertainment channels (GECs) seem to be relaxed and unaffected.

The executives of these channels believe that it will be working as usual this time, and are not showing any concern because of the IPL 5.

This is despite the fact that India is still a single TV household and IPL is known for starting a trend of attracting housewives and kids to watch matches. And, the GEC genre has been seeing a drop in its share during the time of IPL.

However, this time there have been apprehensions about the response for IPL because Indian cricket team has not been performing very well. Yet, it poses a challenge for the GECs when it comes to audiences? preference.

The GEC genre had shrunk by 4.35 per cent during IPL 4 (in the All India market), as compared to a 9.07 per cent drop it had witnessed in the first season of IPL.

GECs are gearing up to launch new shows also during the time of IPL to attract more eyeballs, even if the rest of the plan remains the same.

Colors, for instance, has launched a new fiction today at 7 pm band by the name Kairi. .

According to Colors CEO Raj Nayak, "Today there is so much of cricket all through the year. IPL for us is just another good cricket tournament in the annual calendar. The genre share does not get impacted severely, so for us its life as usual. And it is reflected in our approach, we are launching a new program- Kairi in the launch week of IPL. We have a programming strategy in place. Our focus will be to continue to give our viewers differentiated and a broad variety of fiction and non fiction content."

Zee TV, with its newly found vigour will be launching three new shows. It is bringing back its dancing reality show, DID lil Masters soon. Additionally, it is launching a new fiction show Phir Subah Hogi.

Zee Entertainment Enterprise (Zeel) marketing head - national channels Akash Chawla said, "We are ready to combat IPL this time too."

Chawla noted that the impact of IPL-2 was far less significant than that of the IPL-1. "Last year, the GECs received a 10-15 per cent rating hit because the IPL event was held after the board exams. Two things emerge clearly. One, that regular GEC shows are growing in terms of audience numbers despite IPL. And two, the return on investment, as a result, on the IPL is much lower than on the GECs for advertisers. The five times premium advertisers paid on the IPL is not delivering as much return."
Star Plus, the leading Hindi GEC is planning to take two of its shows, ?Sasural Genda Phool? and ?Maryada?, off-air. The channel is expected to introduce two new fiction properties Ek Dusre se Karte Hain Pyaar Hum and Pyaar Ki Naukri.

Star India business head Hindi channels Nitin Vaidya also feels that IPL will not be able to shake the GEC genre stability. He said, "IPL effect has been declining over a period of time. Star Plus? programming strategy does not depend on IPL. We follow an annual calendar and all programming strategies are implemented accordingly. In the past as well we have launched programs that have done pretty well."

Turner International India chief content officer Vivek Bahl, who looks after the content of Imagine TV also, added, "Anything that brings up decent numbers does affect other?s ratings to an extent. Though the IPL ratings have been dipping each year, non-fiction shows get more affected than fiction shows by the same. Especially fiction that?s been a habit tends to get lesser affected during the IPL. Guess the above is due to the simple fact that the core non-fiction viewers are also those who watch the IPL.

"IPL target audience could be different but to lure that audience does a channel try to incorporate some activities around IPL in their popular shows. We don?t believe in tweaking our content in the face of any outside events or competition. The only ones we cater, & try to stay true to, are our viewers."

Meanwhile, Sony Entertainment Television and Sab, being the sister channels of Max, are not launching any new show. But post IPL, Set will launch singing reality show the sixth season of Indian Idol.

Life OK, Star India?s second GEC will be launching Aasmaan Se Aage on 23 April.

MUMBAI: French company Lagardere has said that its unit Lagardere Unlimited has had a difficult 2011 on account of losses from the Indian Premiere League (IPL).

Profits were hurt despite increased sales due to provisioning, non-collection of debt and litigation, primarily with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in connection with cricket rights at World Sport Group (WSG). Lagardere is the parent company of WSG.

It was a busy sports calendar in 2011, particularly due to the Asian Football Cup (WSG) and qualifying matches for the Uefa Euro 2012. This slightly offset by the absence of revenue from the IPL and no Africa Cup of Nations on the schedule.

Lagard?re Unlimited?s recurring EBIT before associates was negative -?6 million, down ?34 million compared to 2010. Sales grew by 6.2 per cent in the fiscal ended 2011.

Net sales was up 14.5 per cent to ?454 million on a reported basis.

Lagardene (not Legardere Unlimited) managed stable net sales of ?7.6 billion, up 0.2 per cent on a like-for-like basis. Recurring EBIT from Media activities was ?414 million, a reduction of 11.1 per cent at constant exchange rates.

Adjusted net income was ?226 million, down by ?58 million. Net income was impacted by write-downs amounting to ?895 million. At the same time net cash from operating and investment activities was up to ?766m (?320 million in 2010). There was reduction in net indebtedness: ?1,269 million (down ?503 million) and has available cash of ?2 billion.