Uplinking Not To Hit Star, Zee, Sony
The three leading players in the private satellite TV business in India, Star, Zee and Sony will remain unaffected by the government's decision to allow uplinking in India. However, the step is being seen as a positve move.
"Sony will remain unaffected by the step. This step however paves the way for a positive direction as far as the broadcasting industry is concerned. So far despite all the talk, nothing has happened on the Broadcast Bill. The earlier government's decision to ban direct to home (DTH) television was a negative measure," said Kunal Dasgupta, chief operating officer Sony Entertainment Television (SET).
A senior offiicial of Zee Telefilms (ZTL) too said that the measure does not affect them. "It is however a move towards the privatisation of airwaves," he added.
The STAR TV spokesperson A S Roy too said that the move will have no effect on them "We are waiting for the Broadcast Bill and will conform to whatever laws the Indian government enacts," he said.
The Union Information and Broadcasting minister Sushma Swaraj had at a meeting with private Indian announced on Wednesday that Indian channesl with upto 20 per cent foreign equity can uplink from India.She had however added a rider that the facility can be availed only through the state owned Videsh Sanchar Nigam (VSNL).
Star and Sony cannot use this facility as both of them have foreignequity holdings above 20 per cent. SET is a 60:40 joint venture between Sony Pictures of US and Ace Telefilms, which is a consortium consisting of resident and non-resident Indians Sony Picutres in turn is a susbsidiary of Sony of Japan.
In the case of Star it is wholly owned by global media baron Rupert Murdoch. The holding of the Zee family of chanels is Asia Today Ltd(ATLl) which is a 50:50 joint venture between Murdoch and Subhash Chandra incorporated in Hong Kong.The Subhash Chandra promoted ZTL which is wholly Indian owned is only the softwarre supplier to ATL. So far, uplinking was not permitted from India. Consequently, channels beaming into India were uplinking from Hong Kong or Singapore.
The advantage of uplinking from India is that costs will come down susbtantially. The move is expected to benefit a host of Indian channels like Sun TV, Asianet, BiTV and Eenadu. Industry, observers where sceptical whether even the Indian owned channels will uplink from India. "These channels might still prefer to uplink from abroad as VSNL charges a hefty fee for uplinking. This might still prove to be costlier than uplinking from Hong Kong or Singapore," a senior official in aprivate satellite chaneel pointed out.