ESPN-STAR SPORTS CABLE OPERATOR STRATEGY SEEMS TO BE WORKING

Policemen monitoring cable TV networks in Mumbai to curb piracy of the live ESPN-Star Sports transmission of the Cricket World Cup. Television messages exhorting cable TV operators not to replace the television commercials with local ads. Viewer education through a television campaign. A hard as nails attitude on carriage fees it charges cable TV operators.

ESPN-Star Sports India is going the whole hog to tame the wild cable TV industry in Mumbai. And the strategy seems to be working. After playing tough with the sports caster and threatening to black out its cricket telecast, the three MSOs in Mumbai - InCableNet, Siticable and Hathaway Communications - last week meekly signed carriage agreements for Star Sports at the enhanced rate of Rs 4.99 per subscriber. They had earlier carried out a motivated media campaign during the course of which they had alleged that ESPN-Star Sports was arm-twisting them into accepting unnecessary carriage fee hikes, as it had rights to several cricket events in cricket mad India.

ESPN-Star Sports has recruited a special squad of 20 police officers to monitor cable TV networks in Mumbai to prevent piracy and illegal cable TV ads. The squad has strict instructions to raid violators' headends, stop the transmission and arrest and penalise them. The police announced that fines could go up to Rs 300,000 and law breakers could get even three years imprisonment, without any recourse to bail. Errant cable TV operators would also be responsible for the stoppage of the transmission of the ESPN-Star Sports feed on their networks and would have answer to their subscribers, the police said.

Day one of the World Cup saw some cable TV networks in Mumbai switching off the ESPN-Star Sports signal and replacing it with DD Sports just before the match commenced. When they discovered that there was no World Cup telecast on satellite sports channel DD Sports, they immediately switched the ESPN-Star Sports feed once again. Scrolling ads were also aired on some cable TV networks. Day two there were none as the ESPN-Star Sports distribution team issued a warning to them.

The net result: MSOs and cable TV operators, who had shouted from the rooftops that they would bring ESPN-Star Sports to its knees ended up getting tamed themselves. Now, if only the company can get its strategy to work nationally. And only if other programmers would follow in its footsteps as well.