The 5th Casbaa China Roundtable in Beijing and Shanghai, held between 11 and 13 September, attracted significant support from government officials, mainland operating companies and Casbaa members over two days of briefings and information exchanges. The central thread running through the discussions was how to facilitate dealings with the regulatory authorities in China.
The Casbaa China Roundtable 2001 was organised in association with Casbaa members Claydon Gescher Associates (CGA) and MediaView. The event was sponsored by Casbaa member PricewaterhouseCoopers and endorsed and supported by pay-TV regulator the State Administration for Radio, Film and Television (SARFT).

Some 50 Casbaa member delegates attended each of the two days. One hundred delegates from mainland China-based companies also participated.

The presentations featured a dozen overviews of the China and regional markets both in terms of regulation and commercial conditions, with contributions made by, among others, SARFT, CGA, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Zenith Media, Bank of China International, CITV Progamme Agency, OpenTV, BDA, Paul, Weiss Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, Discovery Communications (China), the Shanghai Media & Entertainment Group and Tom.com

Marcel Fenez, Asia Pacific Leader of Pricewaterhousecoopers‘ Media and Entertainment practice and a Casbaa board member gave the opening address. Four 90-minute panel discussions, led by CGA, expanded on the presentations with a sometimes forthright exchanges of views.

"These two days of conferencing reinforced the strides which Casbaa has been making," said Frank Brown, the president of Casbaa. "This information exchange reflected the excitement that our industry is experiencing in China and the huge opportunities that are gradually opening up. Casbaa was delighted to meet with the officials from SARFT and to hear their concise summary of the regulatory environment." Simon Twiston Davies, the executive director of Casbaa, added: "We are so pleased with the progress made with this roundtable that we have already started the process of planning next year‘s China event with CGA and MediaView."

"We were particularly encouraged by the attendance of related Casbaa member companies such as News Corporation (China) and AOL-Time Warner, as well as by outside groups such as ABN Amro, DVN Holdings, Lehman Brothers and SUNeVision, said Twiston Davies, who pointed out that Casbaa member companies such as Scientific-Atlanta, The History Channel, OpenTV, New Skies Satellites, Walt Disney Television and MTV Asia also contributed hugely to the dialogue.

"Despite a sometimes difficult operating environment for our industries we continue to reach out to regulators and the market as a whole. We see Casbaa playing an ever more active role as a bridge between those who set the regulations and those who must work within the framework." said Twiston Davies.

The China market will be given a central position during the upcoming Casbaa 2001 Convention, 28-30 November 2001 in Hong Kong.

Sony Entertainment Television, which joined Star India and Zee TV as a completely pay-driven bouquet when its flagship channel became fully encrypted on 1 September, expects to reach a subscriber base of 26 million viewing homes within the next 30 days.
According to Shantonu Aditya, senior V-P franchise channels and distribution, Sony has already achieved a subscriber base of 20 million after the rollout of over 4,500 set top boxes in the A and B centres across the country. Distribution was going on across other centres at a fast clip, Aditya said.

Aditya said that due to the improved yield that had been achieved (yield is defined by the average number of subscribers that the cable operator declares per box) SET had significantly reduced estimates on the number of boxes that would be required to reach a subscriber base (26 million) equal to that existing pre-encryption. Aditya said he hoped to achieve his target with the rollout of 6,000 boxes but added that at the end of it all that figure might reach as high as 7,000.

That is still far lower than the original estimate of a 10,000 box requirement for full rollout.

Reports that there was a dispute between Star India and Balaji Telefilms over the Tamil reworking of the hit soap "Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi Balaji" were downplayed by both the channel and the production house today.

Balaji had been commissioned to do the programme for the Tamil language Sun TV network. Star raised objections after it was noticed that the initial episodes were virtually identical to that of ‘KSBKBT‘ being shown on Star Plus.

According to Star corporate communications head Yash Khanna, since Star owns the worldwide rights to the soap it had asked Balaji to change the storyline and the television software production house had agreed to do so.

The Tamil version started this April and 104 episodes have already been shown.

Balaji CEO Sanjay Dosi said the issue had been sorted out and emphasised that Star and Balaji continued to share a most positive relationship.

The winner takes it all is an adage that Star India is using to its advantage and how. The industry is bracing itself for another hike in the Rupert Murdoch-promoted network‘s rate card that is set to go into force from next month, ahead of the festival season.

Tapan Pal, president Zenith Media, confirmed that Star had verbally indicated that it was increasing its ad rates soon, though it was still to issue its new rate card.

Pal said that he expected the hikes would be across the board and following on the policy set forth since Star Plus became the number one Hindi entertainment channel, the attempt would be to push the network as a whole.

Pal said advertisers would be encouraged to advertise on the network and those wanting to advertise only on specific programmes would have to pay a heavy premium.

The last time Star increased rates was on 15 June.

Star India executive vice-president, sales & marketing, LS Nayak was noncommittal when asked for his comments.

One thing is clear from the move by Star. Whatever may have been the controversies raised by the recent leak of TRP people meters in Mumbai and Chennai attempting to cast doubts on the ratings systems, Star is asserting its position as the numero uno cable & satellite channel in India.

The only television serial on the life of Maharashtra‘s warrior king Shivaji - off the air for the last two weeks due to a dispute between the serial‘s producer director Vinay Apte and national broadcaster Doordarshan - is likely to be back soon.

Apte‘s complaint is that when Chatrapati Shivaji began airing on 3 June the rate applicable was Rs 840,000 per 30 minutes of broadcast time. Now that the telecast rate has come down to Rs 350,000 per 30 min the deal should be re-negotiated, he says. He has further sought that the show be made a one-hour show as, according to him, the half-hour slot is too limiting.

According to Apte: "DD has already agreed to give me an hourly time slot for which new rates of RS 7 lakhs (700,000) will be applicable. Around 300 seconds of free commercial time (FCT) will be given. But considering the production spend even that is not sufficient to cover costs, he says. What is to be seen is what time slot they can give. We will be re-telecasting the 11 episodes shown earlier in five one-hour episodes, once all the nitty-gritties are sorted out and the time slot is allocated by DD."