ZEE DELAYS DIGITALISATION; LAUNCHES MARATHI CHANNEL WHILE
SUBHASH CHANDRA'S EQUITY STAKE GOES UP
The Zee Network's digitalisation plan for its
channels has been postponed to 14 November. Earlier, the management
had told investors' conference in May that it would take its
channels into digital mode by August-September. The network
has apparently not been able to finalise its subscription
management system hardware though boxes for cable operators
have started arriving, according to industry source.
The first of the services - Zee Marathi - to
be added to the digital bouquet was launched on 14 August.
The 24-hour service is being beamed off Asiasat-3S and is
initially being aired free to air with uplinking taking place
from Singapore. A single 12-hour programming band has been
created which is being repeated. Says Zee Network chairman
Subhash Chandra: "The channel was scheduled for a launch actually
in October along with the three other language services and
the team was preparing for that schedule. I discussed with
the managing director which of the channels could be launched
by 15 August, and he said Marathi was possible. The channel
has been readied in a matter of 10 days."
Chandra says the channel is sure to catch on in the state
of Maharashtra and especially in the interiors where cable
TV penetration is very high. "Marathi-speaking audiences internationally
are sure to tune into the service in the US, UK and wherever
else Zee TV is present."
What prompted Chandra to advance the launch? The forthcoming
elections most likely. The Marathi channel will find favour
with all political parties in Maharashtra who are sure to
welcome another platform from which they can air their views.
Cable TV operators in Maharastra are also going to hop onto
the Marathi bandwagon in a bid to offer viewers another option
to DD's mundane fare.
The channel is airing a mix of Marathi movies,
song-based shows, news, series earlier aired on DD Marathi
and dubbed versions of earlier Zee TV series. For starters,
a dubbed version of the national news aired on Zee News is
being offered to viewers. But Chandra says that production
teams in various cities are being formed to come up with Maharashtra-specific
news.
He adds that Zee channels in Gujarati, Bengali, Punjabi, Malayalam
and Tamil are to roll out soon from the Zee Network to take
it forward in its gameplan to launch a digital bouquet. The
Bengali channel has been planned for 1 September. Chandra
says that cable operators will have to pay for Zee Marathi
when it migrates to the digital bouquet. "They have been getting
free lunches so far. Those days are over," he says.
The launch of the bouquet is going to cause major problems
for other programmers as it is likely that at least a couple
of channels are going to be yanked off the prime band by cable
operators to accommodate the new Zee channels. Already, Siticable,
a joint venture between Subhash Chandra and Rupert Murdoch,
has announced that it will stop carriage of CNBC, National
Geographic and Star News on its network unless franchisee
cable operators agree to pay the carriage fees they charge
directly to them.
Chandra's proposal to merge Zee Multimedia WorldWide with
Zee Telefilms Ltd (ZTL) got the Foreign Investment Promotion
Board's go-ahead last week. Following the share-swap between
the two firms, the equity holding of the Subash Chandra-owned
Hong kong-based Nihan Holdings and other firms will go up
from 51% to 59.16%. The stockmarkets reacted positively to
the deal pushing up the srcip past the Rs 2,500 mark a new
high on the Bombay stock exchange. Stock market watchers expect
the ZTL share to cross Rs 3,000 in the near future, what with
the Zee TV digital bouquet expected to launch by 14 November.
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