The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is planning to put stringent entry-level restrictions on broadcasters launching new television channels. The move is to ensure only serious players enter the business and have effective utilisation of the limited bandwidth available for broadcasting.
With no solution emerging in the legal battle between music companies and private FM radio operators over royalty rates, many of the 37 private FM radio companies have threatened to shut shop soon, restricting choices for over 200 million FM radio listeners to All India Radio channels.
Sports broadcaster ESPN India has managed to lure over a dozen advertisers for the Airtel Twenty20 Champions League, who could spend as much as Rs 270 crore (Rs 2.7 billion).
After deliberations with various stakeholders, including broadcasters and cable operators, the information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry has decided to make the roll-out of CAS voluntary across the country, instead of being mandatory as originally planned.
Advertisers seek safeguards as low viewership of Indo-Pak tie shows the game's showpiece is losing sheen.
The Customised Connectivity Tracking tool can be installed in the catchment area of a cable network and track frequencies.
Backed by US-based Hollywood film company Lionsgate Production, Hong Kong-based Tiger Gate Entertainment is all set to launch two English movie channels called Thrill and KIX in the Rs 250-crore (Rs 2.5 billion) domestic English movies market on television. India has around 10 English movie channels with STAR Movies and HBO, the two leaders in terms of revenue and viewership.
The film generates about Rs 20 crore in first weekend at the box office.
The Indian Premier League is facing a rough pitch. With a little over six months to go for the third leg of the most successful cricket properties of recent times, with a brand value of $2 billion, IPL is facing hostile bouncers -- four to be precise -- that it is finding hard to negotiate.
The TAM numbers have managed to establish the supremacy of Doordarshan over competing news channels like AajTak and India TV (the top others, also established by TAM data) and also entertainment channels like STAR Plus, Colors and Zee TV (the top Hindi general entertainment channels) in 2009.
With the Maharashtra government ordering closure of all multiplexes and theatres in Mumbai till August 16 due to fast spreading swine flu, the film exhibition business may incur an overall financial loss of at least Rs 25 crore from the upcoming long weekend holiday on account of Janmashtami and Independence Day.
The five private DTH operators (Dish TV, Tata Sky and Sun Direct being the other three) are expected to add over six million new subscribers by the end of December, to take the overall subscriber base to over 17 million, a 57 per cent growth over December 2008.
Direct to Home (DTH) operators could be asked to provide inter-operable set-top boxes to their customers with the Competition Commission of India (CCI) seeing prima facie merit in a complaint filed by a consumer organisation that it is in violation of competition laws.
This is significant because the ministry of information and broadcasting is actively looking at making a policy announcement for the third-phase roll out of FM radio as part of its action plan for the first 100-days of the United Progressive Alliance government. A final recommendation to this effect has already been made by the sector regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
At least a dozen advertisers, including Reliance Communications, Nokia, Pepsi, Hero Honda, Maruti and Visa among others, and host broadcaster ESPN STAR Sports may find themselves on a sticky wicket with India's exit from the current world Twenty20 cricket tournament.
Even as Bollywood copes with its worst financial turmoil, with no film having been released for over two months, its award shows are raking in big moolah.
It will be the second FM radio operator to have listed on the BSE, after Entertainment Networks India Ltd that operates its radio business under the Radio Mirchi brand.
Ambika Soni, the new I&B minister, called for a full-presentation on Tuesday on both these issues from senior I&B officials, a day after she took charge of the ministry.
Channels like STAR Plus, Zee TV, Colors, NDTV Imagine and 9X, among others, hope to generate Rs 250 crore of advertising revenue from these shows over the next three months. Together, the broadcasters will churn out over 170 hours of fresh TV content in the form of soaps, reality shows, comedy shows and other genres. The average cost per episode of these 25 new shows is pegged at Rs 2.5-3 lakh.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is expected to see a 30 to 40 per cent jump in revenues from the second edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) tournament over the first edition held in India last year. Profits, however, are expected to increase marginally.
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