Sony Entertainment Television and the Rajan Raheja-owned Hathway Cable & Datacom are hopeful that their ongoing dispute over paid connectivity will be resolved in a day or two. Sony has switched off its bouquet of channels - SetMax, AXN, CNBC (paid services) and the currently free-to-air SET to Hathway - in Mumbai, Pune and Nasik in the western state of Maharashtra.

Industry sources say that Sony wants Hathway to increase the declared connectivity of the bouquet. When Sony has signed a deal with the Hinduja-promoted InCable for a 30,000 subscriber base there is no justification in Sony‘s demand that its base be hiked above that (way higher than that it would seem) is the Hathway argument. "Ask Hathway what is the declared connectivity of Star Sports," Sony‘s senior VP franchise channels & distribution Shantonu Aditya counters, when it was put to him that the increase sought was too high. He, however, clarified that discussions were on and would be resolved sooner rather than later.

Hathway‘s other complaint is that while Sony is set to go pay from 1 September, it has already demanded an increase in the rate of its bouquet to nearly Rs 26.

The Sony signal has been on and off the Hathway feed for the last month or so in the three Maharashtrian cities and the issue at stake seems to be more in the area of parry and thrust than an all out confrontation between the two parties.

Balaji Telefilms Ltd has announced its financial results for the quarter ended ended 30 June 2001 which show impressive growth as well as a strong bottomline.

The income from operations is reported at Rs 236.58 million which is quite high compared to the financial Year 2000 figure of RS 488.82 million. Net profit has been registered at RS 49.3 million which is more than the FY2000 figure of RS 43.54 million.

Other income is low at RS 23,000 compared to the FY2000 figure of RS 7.9 million. When contacted, Ajay Patoria, company secretary, Balaji Telefilms said that it is because of the fact that the fund invested in mutual funds shows income only when the dividend is declared. So other income will see a rise in the coming quarters.

Production costs and telecasting fees have remained more or less at the same levels. The wage bill has gone up as the company is hiring more people in programming as well as production. Other expenditure has remained at the same level as last year. Financial costs have gone down considerably as Balaji Telefilms is moves towards becoming a debt free company.

The company has changed its accounting practice from last year in writing off 100 per cent cost of production of programmes in the same financial year when it is telecast. This will benefit the company in the long term to strengthen its bottomline.

"Our realisation was higher in this quarter which has given a boost to income," says Patoria. At the same time control on expenses, lower interest expenses have boosted the bottomeline.

The EPS (earning per share) for the quarter is at 4.79 which is more than the annualised EPS of 4.23, which shows that company has been successful in maximising shareholders value.

The share market has reacted positively to the result. The scrip touched an intraday high at Rs179.85 and closed on the higher side at RS 188 with more than 2.9 millions share being traded on the BSE.

For Balaji, the future looks bright with its programmes doing exceedingly well on C&S channels, both in the north and in the south. If content be the king, Balaji certainly seems to be producing most the successful stuff on display at present.

In a reflection of the importance that the Ronnie Scewvala-promoted UTV attaches to the "nonfiction area", it has formed a separate division (set up a month ago) to give it the right focus.

UTV‘s nonfiction division sees international business as a major focus area. Satya Mahapatra, GM Nonfiction Television, who heads the the division says: "We already have two international CO-productions in our bag. We are doing a series for Discovery Canada entitled "Working Animals". We have just finished six episodes and are starting work on six more. We are starting pre-production on a 26-part ‘Travel and Cuisine series for a North American channel, with an approximate budget of $1.5 million. We will also co-own the rights of these and build an international library."

"We are in active discussion with seven broadcasters in Europe, USA and Canada for unique shows on various Asian themes and we hope to conclude at least three of them in the next two months," Mahapatra says.

With a client list that includes Disney, Nickelodeon, Discovery, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures, Warner Bros. plus almost every broadcaster in South East Asia, UTV has clear strengths to launch an international onslaught in nonfiction areas, a company release says. An international client base and its strategic alliance with News Corporation gives a lot of synergy in the Western market and a lot of credibility to their marketing, the release says.

Other advantages that UTV has are full fledged production facilities in Singapore and Malaysia which enables it to cater to a Pan Asian show rather than just an Indian show. The other languages that UTV offers co-production opportunities are Mandarin, Cantonese and Bahasa Malay.

Concludes Satya: "We expect 40 per cent of our revenues in television, in the next two to three years time to come from international work and nonfiction that will be an important part of that product mix."