AXN CHANNEL TO MAKE INDIAN DEBUT

Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) is slated to officially flag off its all-action AXN movie channel for the Indian market on 23 October. Sony Entertainment Television (SET) chief executive Kunal Dasgupta says that the channel will have a paid subscriber base of 300,000 homes with a total penetration of 2.5 million Indian homes at launch. (Cable operators normally under-disclose their subscriber bases to programmers). SET's distribution team has already placed 300 Scientific Atlanta Pro-Sumo decoders with cable operators in about a dozen large cities. The team is expected to finally distribute 2,500 boxes all over India. The channel's management has created various slabs to entice cable operators to buy the decoders costing Rs 38,000 each.

Cable operators, paying the full amount for the decoder, are being charged Rs 2.50 per subscriber. Those paying nothing are being levied Rs 5 per subscriber. "All that we are asking cable operators is that they pay us for as many subscribers as they pay Star Movies," says Dasgupta. Dasgupta says AXN is being customized to India with only the India time for shows being shown in promos. "We will also have less series and more movies," he says. "Research showed us that Indian audiences prefer more movies. We have also cut out Japanese and Chinese animation and series and are focusing more on Hollywood fare."