The off-screen battle between television channels for telecast rights, tie-ups, acquisitions is well and truly on with all the big league players looking to outdo each other.

Jumping on is Sony Entertainment Television (SET). Sony Corp‘s 24 hour hindi entertainment channel could well be paying a sum of $4.5 million to grab a 20 per cent stake in CNBC India. Television Eighteen India Ltd, a television software producer and broadcaster currently has a 49 per cent stake in a joint venture with CNBC in India. TV18 had earlier approved of a plan to divest 20 per cent of its stake in CNBC India to set. Now it confirmed that it had reached an agreement with SET to boost advertising revenue for CNBC India.

Under the agreement, SET will now be the advertising sales representative for TV18 in CNBC India‘s business news channel as well as its distribution representative. In return SET has the option of picking up the stake of 20 per cent by 31 October 2000. A press release said that the strong performance of the channel and a successful working relationship between the two parties has led to the signing of the pact.

Even after six weeks of negotiations, the Star TV, RPG Netcom tussle in Calcutta over the carrying of revised rates for Star channels continues.

While Star TV claims that it has managed to break the ice, RPG Netcom, which has around 70% of subscribers in Calcutta city, claims otherwise. The remaining 30% subscribers are distributed among Zee TVs SitiCable and other independent cable operators.

Star TV claims that now 60% of the cable homes in the city receive Star. But RPG says that most of its cable operators have adhered to the boycott.

The blackout was called after Star TV revised the rates of its six channel bouquet including Star Plus, Star World, Star News, Star Movies and NGC to Rs 20 a month per subscriber. But officials at RPG say that their main bone of contention is not the revision of rates but that they are forced to subscribe to all the channels in the bundle and not those of their choice.

Star officials, on the other hand, claim that with the cable operators disclosing only 30% of their total subscriber base, the revision in rates should not be a problem to the cable operators.