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."

Balaji Telefilms‘ creative director Ekta Kapoor is in the news again, and how. Indian television wonderkid‘s hold on the popular pulse has been acknowledged by Asiaweek in its latest Power 50 list for 2001.
The Asiaweek survey on the region?s most influential communicators, technologists, artists, entrepreneurs and politicians, is all praise for the young TV serial producer, saying: "Since producing her first blockbuster television programme at 19, Ekta Kapoor has rewritten the script on TV entertainment for the masses. She has created more than 20 soaps on 10 major Indian networks; a comedy series she created ran for five years. The Indian showbiz community watches her every move, and older, more experienced producers are quick to copy any new Kapoor concept.

As creative director of Balaji Telefilms in Mumbai, Kapoor, 25, continues to produce absorbing dramas - whether about an ambitious tycoon or a beautiful but scheming wife or a 70-year-old grandmother looking for a job - that consistently strike a chord with viewers across the subcontinent. Kapoor now hopes to find similar success with audiences in a different medium: the big screen."

Being listed is the icing on the cake, literally speaking, for Kapoor, as it was only on Saturday that her staff threw a big birthday party for the soap specialist.

Talking of Murdoch, while he is not on the list son James Murdoch has been ranked 43. Installed as CEO last year Murdoch‘s primary task is to work towards making the Southeast Asian operations of Star (mainland China in particular) profitable. Star‘s India operations are its only profit-making venture at the moment and the younger Murdoch‘s task is to change that.