James Packer, son of the Australian media baron Kerry Packer was in India this week. He spoke to The Economic Times about Channel Nine‘s (which is a JV between Packer‘s Consolidated Press Holdings and Himachal Futuristic Communication Ltd) plans for India.
Channel Nine‘s immediate activity in India is a joint venture with Doordarshan wherein it has bagged the contract for upgradation of production and technical standards for DD-Metro‘s morning and prime-time slots. It also has the production rights for DD for all international cricket matches played in India. In addition to the two hours of the prime time slot, Nine Broadcasting has bid for another two hours of prime time on the Metro channel. This is in keeping with Nine Broadcasting‘s strategy to create a platform for itself within Doordarshan.

Kerry Packer‘s Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd (PBL) is helping DD to increase Metro channels network from 75 transmitters to 125 transmitters by the year end. This move is expected to take DD-Metro‘s reach from 180m to around 350m when the project is completed.

BBC World, the international news and information channel form the BBC stable, is the most watched channel amongst the cream of Indian business decision makers. This was the finding of a recent survey conducted by premier research agency ORG-Marg.
The research was carried on with a sample size of 1030 respondents. The respondents were senior executives designated as general managers and above across the top 500 private sector companies registered in India, the largest 100 public sector companies and the leading 100 financial sector companies.

73 per cent of those surveyed said that they had watched BBC World during the previous week - more than any other channel. The survey also revealed that 84 per cent of the respondents watched BBC World in the previous month. Popular entertainment channels like Zee, Sony, Star and DD all failed to attract viewership of more than 50 per cent of the respondents.

Now here‘s a channel that will definitely give Star movies a run for its money. Come 1 September and Home Box Office or HBO as it is popularly known will air movies as a new entity in South Asia.
The new entity will have four of the worlds biggest studios with an equal stake in the venture. These studios banners include Warner Brothers, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Studios and Paramount Pictures.

With a library from all these banners available, the channel promises that there will be 52 new premiers throughout the year - one every week.

HBO was launched in India earlier this year on March 27. But then it had a very limited library because of a standoff between Turner and Sony Entertainment Television. The latter had insisted that it be given the distribution and ad sales contract for the channel in India. Otherwise, it would not part with its Columbia/Tristar library for the Indian HBO channel.

But then Sony decided that it would put an end to the quarreling and withdraw its distribution and marketing bid, thus allowing its library to be used for the India service. The other two participating companies also concurred thus lifting the obstacles for the launch of the mega-movie channel in the region.

According to channel officials, these changes would not result in a rise in the cable rate per subscriber, which currently is Rs 6. The channel will also introduce ad slots. HBO till now was an ad free movie channel.

The new channel will be a feast for the couch potatoes with an impressive line up of movies like Godzilla, The Mask of Zoro, Forest Gump, The Trueman Show and the likes.

UTV chairman Ronnie Screwvala denied any possibilities of Vijay TV being taken over by Star TV. This was to clear the faux pas made by The Economic Times on 3rd August,2000 in their article "Star TV makes moves to acquire Vijay TV".

The article mentioned the possibility of an acquisition of the Tamil language channel Vijay TV by the Rupert Murdoch‘s broadcasting platform. However, Screwvala clarified "There are absolutely no plans for Vijay TV being put for acquisition or any plans having being finalized between Star TV and Vijay TV". Star TV and UTV have been in discussion for Digital Distribution with the Star bouquet both in India and globally. That is the maximum extent of negotiations and discussions so far."