| After his triumph in acquiring a 74 per cent equity stake in Rupert Murdoch’s Star news channel, ABP editoir in chief Aveek Sarkar is now trying to upset Bennett Coleman and Company’s applecart.
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| The publishers of “The Times of India” and “The Economic Times” have been trying to persuade Dow Jones, which publishes “The Wall Street Journal,” to take an equity stake in the group’s financial daily.
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| Senior Bennett Coleman executives even met in the capital a senior Dow Jones executive who’d flown down from the US, in this connection.
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| However, Sarkar has now apparently thrown his hat into the Dow Jones ring. He’s had a round of preliminary discussions with a Dow Jones executive in New Delhi.
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| Last week, the Kolkata-based media boss was believed to be in New York talking to the Dow Jones brass – eschewing, no doubt, his trade mark kurta-dhoti for a Saville Row suit.
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| But what about Zee?
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| Star News has complied and so has CNBC. But Zee News has still to lower its foreign equity stake in the company to 26 per cent, in line with the government’s media policy on news channels.
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| In March this year, existing news channels like CNBC and Zee News were allowed a period of one year to change their equity structure. But if well-placed sources in Zee Telefilms are to be believed, altering the news channel equity structure is not on Zee’s horizon.
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| The reasoning: the date for implementing the new policy is not clear since Star News continued to get weekly extensions for conforming to the policy.
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| Besides, there has been no communiction on the issue from the ministry.
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| Conflict of interest
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| A Delhi-headquartered public relations agency that handles the account of a leading GSM cellular services company suddenly found itself in a spot some two months ago.
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| The GSM services company found that the PR agency had bagged the account of a code division multiple access (CDMA) company.
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| So the GSM services company sent a letter to the agency asking it to choose between the two accounts.
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| Needless to say, the agency decided to drop the CDMA company’s account.
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| Free to speak
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| Optimus, the BPO arm of Polaris Software Labs has always been in the news for the wrong reasons. Polaris sought and got an interim injunction from the courts against Optimus’ top guns, Harpal Dugal and Suren Khirwadkar, speaking to the media about Optimus.
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| This of course prevent a spate of stories appearing in the print media about the reasons for the fall out between the two high profile men and Polaris.
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| Now the buzz in the legal circles is that the Madras High Court has dismissed the injunction restraining Dugal and Khirwadkar from speaking to the media.
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| While Polaris officials did not want to comment on the issue, journalists in the city expect another spate of Polaris stories to hit the newspapers soon, with the court allowing Dugal and Khirwadkar to speak.
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| New faces at Star
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| Star News is getting serious about the competition. It has some new faces at the top. It recently appointed Keertan Adhyanthaya as its brand director. Adhyanthaya will be responsible for building the Star News brand, on-air and off-air promotions and marketing.
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| Since he comes from an advertising background, he was handpicked for the job from the Star India system. Before he joined Star News, he was head of Channel V.
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| But his Star News assignment is said to be more attractive both in terms of role and responsibility. Amar Deb, creative director of Channel V, will now head the Star-owned music channel.
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| The other new face at the Star News office is, of course, ABP managing director A. Lahiri, who’s ABP’s representative on the Star News board. He’s said to be seen more in Mumbai than Kolkata these days. |
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