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SONY LAUNCHES SET
MAX; DENIES ETC ALLIANCE
Sony Entertainment finally launched its
second channel in the Indian market last week. Branded
SET Max, it started with the telecast of the one day
cricket series being played out in Sharjah between Sri
Lanka, Pakistan and the West Indies. According to SET
India marketing head Rajesh Pant, the channel will take
up all the overflow of programming and commercial air
time that cannot be accommodated on Sony Entertainment
Television. Events, cricket matches and Hindi movies
will be the highlights of SET Max, which is also being
telecast off PAS-4. It is Sony's response, along with
AXN, to develop its own channel bouquet and keep pace
with Zee TV and Star TV.
At the time of writing the channel had
got carriage on several cable TV networks thanks to
the cricket series. But the Sony management will have
to take care that cable operators don't switch it off
once the cricket series is over as they are vaunt to
do with sports channels ESPN and Star Sports. The management
should not expect a penetration level higher than 4-6
million for SET Max. Reason: it is likely to be put
on a non-prime band by most cable systems and its viewing
will be limited by the number of television sets that
can tune in to non-prime band frequencies.
Pant adds that the announcement last
week by music channel ETC, that SET and B4U were striking
an alliance with it for the UK was extremely premature.
"Nothing has been firmed up as yet," says he. "It came
as a bolt from the blue."
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