SAHARA BREAKS ITS SILENCE ON TV CHANNEL

The Subroto Roy-promoted Sahara group has pulled out of a deal to take a controlling stake in Home TV, a satellite channel jointly run by the Delhi-based The Hindustan Times group, UK-based Carlton Communications and Pearson and Hong Kong-based TVB.

Admitting that the Sahara group has pulled out of the deal, one of the Roy brothers said, "We decided to call it quits as it was not working out with the other major Indian shareholder not willing to put in its share of commitments."

Subsequent to the Sahara group bidding farewell to the Home TV venture, the satellite channel has gone off the air, especially as transponder rentals had not been paid to PAS-4 management .

Though one of the Roy brothers was not willing to divulge further details on Home TV front or their future plans in the electronic medium, a senior executive of the Uttar Pradesh-based corporate house said, instead, the group has decided to go alone.

"The group has plans to launch a hybrid satellite channel by the first quarter of next year under the Sahara brand name," the executive said, pointing out that this time round the venture will not have other Indian collaborators.

Last year the Sahara group had signed a memorandum of undertsanding with the shareholders of TV Mauritius, the Mauritius-based management company of Home TV, to take a majority shareholding and rename the channel as Sahara TV.

Though details of the MoU are not available, but the deal broadly envisaged foreign shareholders of Home TV like Carlton Communications and Pearson group exiting from the venture and selling their holdings to the Sahara group.

Merchant bankers Schroeders and TVB and HT were to continue holding some stakes in the venture after dilution.

The total foreign equity holding in Sahara TV (the renamed Home Tv as had been envisaged) was to have gone down from the original 70 per cent to about 19 per cent to conform to the proposed Indian guidelines wherein the Sahara group was to have a majority holding of 51 per cent. It had plans of investing about Rs 900 million in fresh programming.

TV Mauritius was originally promoted by The Hindustan Times (30 per cent equity stake), UK-based Pearson plc and Carlton Communications and Hong Kong-based TVB (15 per cent each) and merchant bankers Schroeders which held a 25 per cent stake.

Sahara group was one of the three companies which had been bidding for controlling stakes in TV Mauritius. The other two were Hollywood major Metro Goldwyn-Myer (MGM) and a US-based civil aviation and energy major having small interest in entertainment industry, Ogden.