The Zee Network, which had initially been quite cool to making a bid for slots on national broadcaster Doordarshan‘s Metro Channel, now says it is interested in making a pitch but only for the 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM slot.

HFCL-Nine Gold, which suffered a setback when national broadcaster Doordarshan threw open bidding for prime time slots on its DD Metro channel, was non-committal when queried how it would respond to Zee‘s move. A senior official would only say they were keeping a track of the developments and would declare their intentions at the appropriate time.

Partho Sinha, senior vice-president (marketing) for Zee Network said: "After due assessment, we are definitely interested in bidding." It may be recalled that Zee Network CEO RK Singh, while not ruling out making a pitch when bidding was initially opened, appeared to indicate that there was little likelihood of this happening.

Late last month Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) had invited bids for the prime time band of 7:00 to 10:00 PM and for the 10:00 PM to 00:30 am slot on DD Metro for a period of three years. Dividing the time band into one-hour slots, it laid the floor price of Rs 225 million, RS 325 million, RS 425 million and RS 175 million for the four hourly slots between 7:00 PM to 11:00 PM

Prasar Bharti said the pre-qualification bids would be opened on 18 June and financial bids the next day and that bidders would be allowed to be present at the time of opening of both bids.

Nine Golds‘ rights to the 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM slot comes to an end in September while rights to the 9:00 PM to 10:00 PM slot ceases in October. Last year it had bought up the prime time band on DD Metro for RS 1210 million.

Star India this evening switched off all its feeds to IN Cable in Mumbai city over what it said were unpaid payments going back three months and a massive under-declaration of its subscriber base on the part of the multi-systems operator (MSO). IN Cable on its part claimed it had filed a court case against what it termed were "predatory practices" by broadcasters.

IN Cable CEO Ram Hingorani said that Star, ESPN and AXN - the action channel from the Sony Entertainment Television‘s stable - had all ganged up and formed a cartel against it. Hingorani alleged that SET India has also switched off its AXN decoders in the IN Cable headends but Sony officials could not be contacted for details at the time of posting this report.

According to Yash Khanna, Star‘s corporate communications head, the shut-off was the culmination of a long-standing dispute with IN Cable over its declared connectivity. "IN Cable claims 1.5 million subscribers when chasing advertising, but when they come back to us they say the figure is less than 150,000. That‘s not even 10 per cent of their actual subscriber base," Khanna pointed out.

There is also the issue of nonpayment of dues, Khanna said. "IN Cable has been seeking more time to pay its dues for the last three months now. We decided that enough was enough," he added.

The shutoff comes close on the heels of the blanking out of sports channels, ESPN and Star Sports, by the ESPN-Star Sports management following a tussle over subscription bases on 7 June. The shutoff had caused a lot of consternation among viewers because it happened just before the start of the India-Zimbabwe Test cricket series.

During the recently held England-Pakistan one-day series, ESPN-Star Sports went to the extent of announcing that any subscriber of IN Cablenet watching the transmission of the match was doing something illegal as it was a pirated signal and an act such as this was liable for penal action.

This hasn‘t prevented local sub-ops affiliated to IN Cable from stealing the ESPN Star Sports signal though, from other cable operators.

Hingorani could not be reached later for more details on his version of the events despite repeated attempts. Apparently, he is scheduled to meet with the Star distribution team to sort out the issue tomorrow morning.

Zee Telefilms‘ effort to migrate the free to air (FTA) analogue Zee TV to pay TV digital mode is facing teething problems. At the time of writing, rivals and some cable ops alleged that the channel is not available in almost 70 per cent of Indian cable and satellite TV homes ever since the analogue FTA beam was switched off on Sunday, 10 June. Zee, however, strongly denied this.

"They have not been able to distribute enough of the digital IRDs nationally," alleged an official from a rival channel. "The result is that the channel is not available in most of interior India."

Zee Telefilms CEO RK Singh denied this was true. "The figure is actually the reverse. Zee TV is available in almost 70 per cent of Indian cable and satellite homes," he says.

According to him, a distribution team of 80 is beating the streets in order to reach the IRDs to cable TV operators. "So far, 4,500 digital boxes have been distributed. Another 2,000 should be rolled out in the next eight to 10 days and all the problems will be sorted out," he reveals. "Viewers have nothing to worry about. Ditto cable TV operators."