Entertainment - Livemint.com

DAR Media enters into deal with Manjrekar

Shraddha Nair — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:51:00 GMT

Mumbai: Mumbai-based Pvt. Ltd, has entered into a three film deal with director Mahesh Manjrekar, the first of which is ‘City of Gold’, scheduled for a May 2010 release, said Arun Rangachari, chairman, DAR Capital group. Each of the films is in the Rs15-20 crore bracket.

DAR Media, a subsidiary of investment advisory and private equity firm DAR Capital group, is also in advanced negotiations for a tie-up with two other film-makers, he added.

DAR Capital also plans to launch a Rs200 crore film fund with Dubai-based Signature Group International, an India-focused asset management firm, that is expected to be fully subscribed by mid-2010. “Content is going to drive the media space in India,” Rangachari said, explaining the rationale behind the fund.

26/11 attacks become lucrative commercial venture

AFP — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:29:00 GMT

New Delhi: The Mumbai attacks have spawned books, films, paintings and even comics as India’s creative minds look to cash in on an event still fresh in Indian minds.

So far at least 10 books have been published related to the Mumbai attacks, in which 166 people died during a bloody three-day rampage by 10 Islamist gunmen.

One of the books, “Warzone Mumbai,” by novelist Mrityunjay Bose, recalls the horror experienced by those caught up in events last year.

Another is called “Mumbai under Siege,” written by Indian television journalist Nikhil Dixit and providing a minute-by-minute account of how the assault unfolded.

The 10 heavily armed militants stormed two luxury hotels, a tourist restaurant, a Jewish centre and a railway station last November.

Soon after the attack, scriptwriters, directors and producers rushed to register over 30 projects with the Indian Motion Picture Producers’ Association, assigning them titles like “The Taj Encounter” and “Taj Terror.”

One movie “Total 10,” focusing on the lone gunman captured during the attacks, Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, is set to hit movie screens soon while a number are in production.

“The Mumbai attacks are still fresh in the mind of people. They’ll be attracted to anything made about them,” said Sushma Shiromanee, vice-president of the association.

Artists have also staged at least two dozen exhibits with works focusing on the attacks.

Painter Subodh Kelkar, who is based in the western Indian city of Pune, recently held a show of his oil works in New Delhi, using “terror and anguish” as the theme.

“It’s very good Indians are recording the incident in unique ways,” Kelkar said.

Two computer games, “Operation Mumbai” and “Mumbai Rescue,” have been launched in which players aim to kill the militants and rescue the hostages.

And last month, Raj Comics released a 77-page book in which a superhero wages war against the militants.

In the comic book, a green-coloured muscular fighter called “Nagraj” or snake king, chases the militants, helps the police and finally kills the attackers.

Cartoonists who worked on the comic strip say they wove fiction and reality together for their heroic tale.

“Using the Mumbai attacks as the subject was a challenge but I am glad we did it and our readers loved it,” said Sanjay Gupta, creative director of Raj Comics, which sold over 80,000 copies of the book.

Marketing experts say any product related to the attacks is hot because of the public fascination with them.

“Even a bad product on the 26/11 will find buyers,” said Dinesh Kapur, a senior marketing executive at an advertising firm in New Delhi.

Oprah’s exit opens wide range of possibilities

Brian Stelter / NYT — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:47:00 GMT

There is no single replacement for Oprah Winfrey.

That’s not necessarily a statement about the dominance of her 24-year-old television institution, The Oprah Winfrey Show. Rather, it is the reality of television syndication.

When Winfrey leaves the broadcast airwaves in two years, a stable of talk shows will vie to fill her former time slot on more than 200 stations across the US. Individual stations are bound to place differing bets, drastically reshaping the daytime TV landscape.

As with NBC and Jay Leno earlier this year, the television chess board is being rearranged by a talk show host.

Even before Winfrey announced last Friday that 2011 would be the right time to step off her broadcast stage, TV executives were jostling on behalf of Ellen DeGeneres, Dr Mehmet Oz, Dr Phil McGraw and other hosts who aim to benefit from the syndication shake-up.

A triumph of avoiding the traps

David Carr / NYT — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:56:00 GMT

When you look at Oprah Winfrey’s multi-decade run through daytime talk it’s easy to be impressed by what she did to make it happen. But her longevity and success probably has more to do with what she did not do.

She never took her company public, which meant that she remained in control of both her operation and her destiny (see Martha Stewart).

She never christened her own book imprint even though she created best-sellers with the flick of the wrist (see Miramax/Talk).

She never stuck her name, a very powerful brand, on any merchandise (see Martha again, along with a host of chefs and athletes).

She did not licence her name to a magazine, she built one in her own image and tweaked it until it became a big publishing success (see Donald Trump, et al).

Trend-setter: Talk-show host Oprah Winfrey. Harpo Productions

She never engaged in behaviour that tarnished the lustre of her name. (Martha again, plus David Letterman).

She also never made big deals just for the sake of synergy (AOL-Time Warner), never got addicted to doing deals (see Barry Diller), never made dubious investments that put a strain on her core business (Sumner Redstone and Midway), never let in-house corporate politics boil into public view (Michael Eisner). And, while building a murderer’s row of daytime programming, she never got involved in businesses she didn't understand (Edgar Bronfman, Jean-Marie Messier and, well, just about everybody else in the media world).

And now we can add that she never hung on past her prime, choosing to go out as a talk show host while her programme was still on top.

“I don’t think of myself as a businesswoman,” she told Fortune magazine in 2002. And that’s sort of the point. A business type would have said that to sell books through her book club’s endorsement without dipping your beak in was silly.

And let’s not forget that just when tabloid television was beginning to crest and threatened to tip over into a sea of cross-dressing Nazis, she pulled back, saying that she could build a bigger audience on uplift than on baser instincts.

“She was transparent and authentic before those things were cool,” said Arianna Huffington. “When she went through her battles with weight, with her battles to come to grips with her past, we went through those things with her. Now with social media and the Internet, those things are the coin of the realm, but she got there before the rest of us did.”

“If you are out to build a brand, you have to know what is real and right for you,” said Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue. “The choices that she has made stand the test of time because they are very personal choices. If you look at her support for the movie Precious, that is not a business decision, it is very personal.”

She most recently confounded naysayers by stepping out of her pew to endorse Barack Obama, a first for her. The message boards on her website lit up in protest and certain observers—I can think of one hack media columnist in particular—suggested that she was risking the nonpartisan sanctity of her brand. Given that she just piled up huge ratings with a Sarah Palin interview last week, it didn’t turn out that way.

It could be argued—well, I'll just say it—without Oprah Winfrey, there would be no Barack Obama. Not because she endorsed him, but with her message of bootstrap accountability, she not only empowered black people, she empowered white people.

“Oprah, for African-Americans, became the person who made America comfortable with a black presence in their living rooms on a daily basis,” said Al Sharpton. “And she was able to do it in a way that brought us dignity. She didn't do it as sex object, she didn't do it as a comedian. She was thoughtful and professional.”

Felicia R. Lee contributed to this story.

From 30 seconds to three hours: when ad makers turn film-makers

Animesh Das / CNBC-TV18 — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:18:00 GMT

For over 90 days, cabin number 46 at the Mumbai headquarters of ad agency Meridian Communications Pvt. Ltd has been vacant, waiting for executive creative director Rensil D’Silva to return. D’Silva has been busy, juggling work on Kurbaan, his first film as a director, with overseeing the seven brands on Meridian’s roster.

His first brush with Hindi films came in 2001 when he wrote the story for Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Aks. He then co-wrote the screenplay for Rang De Basanti in 2006. None of this, says D’Silva, would have been possible without the support and backing of Meridian and its parent company, Ogilvy and Mather (India) Ltd.

“I told Piyush (Pandey, chairman, O&M) I want to go out and make this film, and he said, ‘Sure, you must do it’. Ogilvy as a group is very encouraging and Piyush understands the need for a creative person to grow,” he says.

It’s a similar story at Lowe India. After the success of his first film, the Amitabh Bachchan starrer Cheeni Kum in 2006, R. Balakrishnan, chairman and chief creative officer at Lowe India, too, has been juggling work. In 2007, he opted for a more flexible arrangement with Lowe, and though it has meant fewer hours at the office there has been little respite in responsibility. “Even when Balki’s making films, he’s involved with the agency. Some ideas and scripts do go through him and clients obviously still contact him, but nothing like to the same degree when he’s here full-time,” says Charles Cadell, chief executive, Lowe India.

But with the economic downturn, can an ad agency justify a creative director who’s away for extended periods? Cadell clarifies, “Part of the reason Balki is so good is because of his passion for films. And if you were to somehow cut that from his life, then you wouldn’t have the same Balki, the same quality. So, it is an agreement that you reach with the organization and that’s what we’re paying for. We don’t say that we’ll pay for this or that. We pay for Balki.”

So while Balki worked on his second film, Paa, which releases on 4 December, Lowe asked its creative team to step up. Creative directors Arun Iyer and Madhu Noorani have shouldered a lot of the routine responsibilities. And, according to Cadell, that’s working fine with some of Lowe’s biggest clients such as Hindustan Unilever Ltd and Idea Cellular Ltd.

“Clients are only picky about the ideas they get. So as long as the quality of the ideas and the work doesn’t appreciably worsen, they are happy.”

The film connection can on occasion also work as a problem solver. D’Silva says a film or Hindi cinema association automatically makes a person seem a little more exciting. “Clients know that you’re going out on a limb to make something. So they encourage and support you.”

For most creative people in ad agencies, the chance to jump from the average 30-second spot to a full-length feature film is a dream they nurture from the start. The rise of the small multiplex film that breaks from mainstream Hindi film convention means many of those dreams can be satisfied on their terms. With Hindi film producers experimenting with new forms of story-telling and wanting to improve production values, ad makers are in demand, says Vijay Lalwani, a former creative director at McCann Erickson. Lalwani had jumped ship in November 2007 to write, direct and co-produce Excel Entertainment’s next potboiler, Karthik Calling Karthik.

It’s a move, he says, that was waiting to happen. “After five years, I got tired of the fact that the ultimate call was always going to be taken by the client. I wanted to explore the next creative challenge, which for me, was feature film making. Advertising also takes a lot of creativity; I’ve got all my training there and I’m grateful for that. But ultimately, I want to spread my creative wings.”

He adds that while an advertising background helps, it doesn’t guarantee the big break. “The training process is pretty much the same, despite the difference in format. Since we script our own dialogues, visualize, rehearse, go out and shoot, it helps. The fact that you’re well versed with ideating is advantageous as compared to a layman. People will be comfortable since you’ve done that process.”

In many cases, it seems advertising is the best way to get a foot in the door of the movie business. Cadell thinks that while this is the nature of the business globally, in India it may be magnified with a lot of creative people in advertising aspiring to be scriptwriters and directors. To satisfy these creative urges and still keep the agency ticking, Lowe India has started a program that encourages creative people to write scripts that will eventually be produced by the agency.

“It helps the agency, it helps the clients, it helps the quality of our work. But at the end of the day, you can’t have everyone in advertising going on to be a Bollywood (Hindi film) director. So while we actively encourage the art and the craft, not everyone has the talent or the calibre of a Balki,” says Cadell.

In short, not every ad maker has the good fortune or the raw talent to be a film-maker. And even for those who do manage that creative leap, while a hit is heady, a flop is in full public view. No more protected by the anonymity of a 30-second ad film.

cnbctv18@livemint.com

Storyboard airs on Tuesday at 7pm on CNBC-TV18.

‘Twilight’ sequel smashes box office forecasts

Reuters — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 03:44:00 GMT

Los Angeles: “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” scored the third-highest opening weekend of all time at the North American box office, earning an estimated $140.7 million during its first three days, its distributor said on Sunday.

The vampire romance sequel vastly exceeded expectations, which had started at $100 million ahead of its release but steadily rose to about $125 million as early sales data rolled in on Friday.

It is well on its way to exceeding the $193 million total of its predecessor, “Twilight,” which was released exactly a year ago.

The record for an opening record is $158 million, set last year by the Batman sequel “The Dark Knight.” The 2007 movie “Spider-Man 3” follows with $151 million. “New Moon” replaced “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” ($136 million) at No. 3.

Summit Entertainment said “New Moon” also set an opening-day record with Friday sales of $72.7 million, surpassing the $67.2 million haul of “The Dark Knight.”

That tally was bolstered by record-breaking midnight sales of $26.3 million. The old mark was set earlier this year by “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” with $22.2 million.

The closely held studio said “New Moon” also earned $118.1 million from 25 foreign markets. Data from individual countries were not immediately available.

Exit-polling data in North America indicated that women accounted for 80% of the audience and half the audience was aged under 21.

“New Moon” revisits the dangerous romance between high school student Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson).

After falling in love with each other in “Twilight,” Bella and Edward break up in “New Moon.” Bella finds solace in her friendship with Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), an American Indian who is also a werewolf. Jacob protects Bella from vampires who kill humans but she still longs for the gentle blood-sucker Edward who got away.

All the stars have become sex symbols and regulars in gossip columns and fans lined up to see the sequel days before it opened.

The “Twilight” film franchise is based on a series of four novels of the same name by Stephenie Meyer, which her publisher says have sold 85 million copies worldwide. A third film is due in June.

STAR says govt regulation has no role in media sector

PTI — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 08:37:00 GMT

New Delhi: Blaming excessive regulations for the media and entertainment industry’s acute financial crisis, Rupert Murdoch’s Indian venture Star Group on Sunday said the government and regulator had no role in the sector.

At the same time, Star India CEO Uday Shankar alleged that politicians and industrialists were trying to control the media, saying: “There is a sense of media badgering that I get and I have increasingly been getting from the upper segments of the society...

“A lot of people do it innocently and I don’t doubt that for a moment ... but when an MP says, I smell a rat. Their (politician’s and industrialists) objective is to control it.”

Shankar said that the faulty government policies and lack of monitoring and accounting for cable industry and resultant revenue leakages had put the industry in a dire situation.

“Most of the players are facing acute financial crisis... other than two or three none is making money,” he said.

Demanding that the industry be left to market forces and content be monitored in conformity with the defined policy, he told PTI: “Government should step back from its control mindset and allow self regulation...

“I think government bodies are not comfortable with a vibrant media. By trying to control the media (by asking it to adhere to its Content Code), the government is not improving it but trying to defang it.”

The Group said it commands a market leadership position with 15% share and has the largest bouquet of channels ranging from sports to music to family entertainment.

On why he was suddenly raising these issues and if he had got a go-ahead from media baron Murodch, who was in India earlier this month, Shankar said he had spoken on industry issues earlier also and his mandate as CEO was to protect the interest of the group which he was doing.

He urged the industry to join forces for the common cause and overcome internal differences.

Asked if he was suggesting that the industry should overcome petty interests and infighting to face bigger challenges, he said: “Yes... You are putting words in my mouth but I will agree with that.”

On whether he was speaking on behalf of the entire industry and if the issue was being discussed by others in the business, he said: “The industry (Indian Broadcasting Foundation) is showing signs of coming together but it is not yet coming together with the urgency it should.”

Asked whether the broadcasters want the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and TRAI to completely lay off, Shankar said: “When newspapers can regulate themselves through Press Council of India and Editors Guild, then why not television channels? Regulation has to be redefined. Tariff fixation should be left to the market as it will serve the industry well.”

With Star India already on the board of IBF, a body of broadcasters formed in 1999 to promote the Indian broadcasting industry, Shankar added that instead of having another body, concrete action is required to address the issue of self regulation rather than just having internal discussions.

“More action is needed rather than discussions. A new approach is required to run the industry as internal rifts have hurt it,” Shankar said.

He also blamed an underdeveloped cable industry for what he called “broken down economics” of television channels in the country.

On Trai’s pay-per-view move, Shankar said “What they did is that tended up fattening the purse of the cable operators at the cost of the customers and the broadcasters.”

He said the word regulation itself needs to be reconsidered and that the objective of the regulatory body should be management and not regulation.

“In a regulated regime some party or stakeholder in the value chain would be a disproportionate beneficiary and the end-customer is always the loser,” Shankar added.

CNBC-TV18, Awaaz merge operations

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:17:00 GMT

New Delhi: Broadcasting group Network 18 said it was merging the operations of business news channels CNBC-TV18 and CNBC Awaaz to save on costs.

“This move will realize significant cost synergies between the operations, and about 12% permanent positions in the company would be rendered surplus,” the company told the Bombay Stock Exchange on Friday.

There are 1,100 employees in the two channels, according to a person familiar with the development, who declined to be named. That would put the number of job losses at 132.

The company didn’t say how many employees would lose their jobs. Founder and managing director Raghav Bahl said in a phone text message that the company didn’t have any information beyond what was available in the press release.

Those rendered jobless by the move, which will merge the logistics and back-end operations of the two channels, are being offered an average severance payment amounting to at least three months’ salary, the person cited above said. Some will move from direct employment to being freelancers, he said.

The firm will save around Rs65 crore a year on operational costs and interest, it said in the release.

Mint has a content-sharing agreement with CNBC-TV18.

— Ishita Russell

Shiv Sena activists attack TV channel office

New Delhi: A group of 20-25 Shiv Sena activists on Friday attacked journalists and damaged property at the Mumbai office of IBN7 and IBN Lokmat, the Hindi and Marathi news channels of the IBN Network for their reportage against the party. The attack comes a day after a wing of the Shiv Sena staged protests against UTV Bindass channel’s reality show Big Switch.

According to the activists, one of the tasks that the contestants were given on the show hurt the sentiments of a community, resulting in a public apology released by the channel.

State chief minister Ashok Chavan said strict action will be taken against those involved in the attack.

— Ishita Russell

Playboy’s bunny turns more alluring than its playmates

Reuters — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:10:00 GMT

Bangalore: Playboy spent 56 years making sure that the world would know it by the sign of its bunny ears. Now that the company is up for sale, Playboy’s iconic logo, not the magazine, might be what saves it.

Playboy Enterprises Inc is in talks with at least one possible bidder for the Chicago-based company.

Fashion house Iconix Brand Group may be more interested in the company’s saucy symbol than the photo spreads of naked women that made the magazine famous in the first place.

Iconix wants the bunny ears brand, but wants a partner from the publishing world to buy the magazine and other content, a source familiar with the talks previously told Reuters.

The idea makes sense. Playboy magazine, with its double-header lineup of nude models and celebrity interviews, has long been in decline. Advertising revenue and circulation are falling, and readers get both attractions elsewhere, particularly for free on the Internet.

At the same time, the bunny ears brand hearkens back to an era when Playboy was widely read and epitomized the idea of the urbane sophisticate who appreciates the the finer things that the swinging bachelor lifestyle promises.

In pop culture, that means photo spreads of celebrities such as Drew Barrymore, as well as memorable interviews including the one in which former US President Jimmy Carter famously said “I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.”

That brand image, properly deployed, promises lots of cash to the right buyer, several analysts and experts said.

“They have definitely not ruined (the brand). It’s just that it has to be brought back towards the image it once had,” said Kelly O’Keefe, a branding specialist at Virginia Commonwealth University.

“There is more to this brand than just sex,” he said. “There is sophistication, there is lifestyle, and there is freedom. And they haven’t really done what they might to take advantage of that.”

Iconix, which owns and licenses clothing brands such as Candies, Joe Boxer and Rocawear, is known for successfully exploiting valuable brands that it picks up from often troubled companies.

“Knowing Neil (Cole, CEO of Iconix Brands), they are going to put a game plan together, find some retail partners, give the Playboy brand a direction, and bring it back to life,” said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at the NPD Group.

“This is a brand that has had licensees from every single possible realm of product without any control or any real long-term plan,” Cohen said.

Gradient Analytics analyst Nick Gibbons said $33 million might be the right price for the brand. It “doesn’t sound astronomical, and would be within Iconix’s reach,” Gibbons said.

Bunnies and Brands

But what will happen to Playboy magazine?

For its January-February ‘10 issue, Playboy lowered its rate base — the circulation guaranteed to advertisers — to 1.5 million from 2.6 million, according to its latest quarterly report filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

That’s a big drop for the publication that claimed circulation of over 7 million in 1972, and helped shape society’s opinions on nudity, sex and free speech even as it enraged many who accused it of objectivizing women by encouraging boorish men to slaver over their bodies.

The problem? What was controversial then is often considered tame now.

Its representatives bristle when reporters and others include the name Playboy along with harder-edged titles like “Hustler” and “Penthouse,” or term it pornography, but such competition and easily accessible Internet content have made the magazine much less desired by younger readers.

The search for friendlier terms with a wider audience than furtive adult entertainment viewers leaves it struggling to find a niche.

“Lad mags” like Maxim that feature similar photo shoots, with a little bit more fabric covering the models´ bodies have also taken many customers away.

That and the passage of more than half a century might boomerang on the bunny ears, despite the promise they hold.

The logo is “past the mid-point of its life cycle,” said Gibbons of Gradient.

“What clients are Iconix going to push the license through to? I wouldn’t see the big-box retailers like Wal-Mart or Target being too keen to stock Playboy merchandise.”

Bollywood’s latest offerings in living rooms via DTH

Reuters — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:02:00 GMT

Mumbai: Danny Boyle’s Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire didn’t just garner rave reviews and worldwide acclaim, it also triggered a change in the way Indian movies are being distributed.

The film was one of the first to be shown on the direct-to-home (DTH) platform in January barely a few days after its release in India, and sold more than 150,000 pay-per-views within the first three days.

“Slumdog made the industry sit up and take notice that DTH was a platform that could be taken seriously,” says Vikram Mehra of Tata Sky, one of India’s leading DTH operators.

“After that, a lot of Bollywood films have hopped on to the bandwagon.”

So far Bollywood, the world’s largest film industry, has followed a very traditional distribution model, with hardly any focus on alternative platforms such as web streaming or mobile embedding.

Even though DTH reaches only 15% of India’s 220 million television-owning households, Bollywood is increasingly viewing it as the next big thing to launch movies.

“Home video sales are dropping, piracy is a threat to the industry and even a big movie doesn’t last for more than three weeks in theatres,” says Amrita Pandey, vice president of international distribution and syndication for UTV Motion Pictures, one of India’s biggest production houses.

“In such a situation, DTH seems like a platform that will have to be nurtured.”

Pandey, whose company released Main Aurr Mrs Khanna on DTH within three days of its release in October, says figures from DTH sales have been “very encouraging”.

Theatre owners had protested against the trend of releasing films on DTH so soon, complaining that it would affect their business.

But Mehra defended the platform, saying that it would serve a different audience.

“What a lot of people don’t understand is that the theatre audience is totally different from the ones who will order for a movie at home. Perhaps I will watch three films at the theatre in a month, but I will want to watch the fourth at home,” he said.

“Going to the theatre with your family is an expensive proposition and DTH makes it much easier.”

DTH subscribers in India are expected to reach 40 to 45 million by 2012, he said.

Oprah Winfrey to end talk show in Sept 2011

Reuters — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:56:00 GMT

Los Angeles: Oprah Winfrey, one of the most influential and highly paid women on television, will announce on Friday she is ending her popular daytime talk show in 2011.

Winfrey’s production company, Harpo Inc, said on Thursday she would make the official announcement on Friday’s live program from Chicago and talk about the reasons behind the decision to end it after 25 years on the air.

She is expected to move to cable network OWN, or Oprah Winfrey Network, a Los Angeles-based joint venture she formed with Discovery Communications Inc, when her current syndication deal for “The Oprah Winfrey Show” runs out in 2011. OWN will be available in more than 70 million homes.

Harpo declined to comment on whether or when a revised form of the program might appear on OWN, whose launch has been delayed several times since its original 2009 start date.

“The Oprah Winfrey Show,” broadcast from Chicago on ABC stations across the United States and in more than 140 countries overseas, is one of the TV industry’s biggest money-makers. It is the top-rated US daytime talk show, averaging 7.1 million viewers this year.

Winfrey, 55, is considered a major opinion-maker in the United States and this year was No. 45 on Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s most powerful people.

She publicly promoted Barack Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign and her program became a platform this week for Republican 2008 vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin to launch her book, “Going Rogue.”

Actor Tom Cruise, the late Michael Jackson, and singer Whitney Houston are among the celebrities to have sat on, jumped on and poured out their hearts on her couch since the program began in 1986.

Winfrey used the show to launch her magazine, a book club that turned authors into best-sellers, and a cable TV channel, Oxygen, geared to female and lifestyle topics.

Her decision will affect CBS Corp’s CBS Television Distribution arm, which syndicates the show, and Walt Disney Co’s ABC-owned and operated TV stations that broadcast the show.

CBS TV Distribution said in a statement it wished Winfrey well. “We have the greatest respect for Oprah and wish her nothing but the best in her future endeavors. We know that anything she turns her hand to will be a great success. We look forward to working with her for the next several years, and hopefully afterward as well,” the statement said.

Role reversal in ‘Paa’ an opportunity of a lifetime: Abhishek

PTI — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:07:00 GMT

Mumbai: Bollywood star son Abhishek Bachchan, who plays father to real life dad Amitabh Bachchan in R Balakrishnan’s upcoming movie Paa feels that it is a lifetime oppurtunity for him.

“This is a role of a lifetime. Very few actors get such an experience and opportunity... especially a son to play father to his own ‘Paa’. We are only and perhaps the first actor father-son duo to have played themselves in a role reversal,” Abhishek said in an interview.

He said that Paa, where Big B plays a 13-year-old boy suffering from progeria, a rare genetic disorder which accelerates ageing, is a simple, light hearted and happy film.

“Paa is not a film about progeria. It is a happy film about a father and his son and the sweet moments that they share,” Abhishek said.

“The genetic disorder is just the unique backdrop of the film... just like Mili where my mother (Jaya Bachchan) is suffering from a disease but the film was not about the illness,” he said.

“There is a family in Kolkata where three children of a family suffer from progeria syndrome. But Balki did not want us to meet them and discuss their condition because it would have been very insensitive and intrusive,” the Junior Bachchan said.

Abhishek plays Amol Arte, a young politician and MP from Lucknow in the film.

“I have modelled my look after Sachin Pilot and Milind Deora. There were no special efforts taken for my look in the film because we wanted to keep the character as normal as possible,” he said.

Besides, we had to maintain the uniqueness of Dad’s look in the film and did not want to overload it with different types of looks for other characters, he added.

The actor said that Balki made him shave “which I had not done for 5-6 years.”

Abhishek also lost 15 kg when he shot for Paa.

“I had lost weight for Raavan and Mani Ratnam took ill during the making which delayed the shooting schedule for six months. Paa was scheduled to go on floors in December this year after I finish Raavan. Due to the delay in Raavan, we completed Paa during that period,” he said.

On working with his father in movies, Abhishek said Paa is my fifth film with him. I am used to pressures of sharing screen space with him. I have never thought about the pressures and expectations as a challenge. I prefer using that energy to better my performance.“

“I got to spend time with him as for the last couple of years, my films have been shot outside Mumbai or abroad. Also due to the make up, it was easy to forget the real person behind the mask,” he added.

On director Balki, the actor said that his approach towards life was very unique.

“There is a freshness which can be witnessed in his films like Cheeni Kum and this is evident in his direction as well,” he said.

He also said that Paa was not inspired by Robbin Williams film Jack where the character is 10 years old but looks 40, when he first goes to a public school.

“It is a fantasy film based on the character’s experiences at school while Paa is a father-son relationship story,” he said.

Speaking about his experience in the film, Abhishek said that it was inevitable that his father will be best in terms of performance, more so with a new look.

“But if the characters around him do not perform well, the world around Amitabh Bachchan’s character will become unbelievable. It was a big challenge before me, Vidya Balan and Paresh Rawal was to be as convincing as possible,” he said.

Abhishek also does not see AB Corp as a full fledged production studio when asked about other projects in the pipeline, except for Paa and Marathi film Vihir which is ready for release.

“I want the company to be a small production house which makes films we believe in and make them well irrespective of the language. It is not necessary that the films we make will have a Bachchan acting in it,” he said.

The junior B has no plans to reduce his acting assignments and don the producer’s hat.

“I will not be an active producer but will have a say in what kind of films, the company will be making,” says Abhishek, who is one of the directors of A B Corp.

The actor is trained in production and has handled AB Corp’s previous projects Mrityudataa and Majorsaab.

The actor is currently shooting for Ashutosh Gowariker’s Khele Hum Jee Jaan Se where he is paired opposite Deepika Padukone.

“This is a period film on the Chittagong uprising of 1930. The film went on floors last week and we are currently shooting in Goa,” he says.

Abhishek said that Mani Ratnam’s Raavan will release next summer. The actor is paired with wife Aishwarya Rai in the film.

Krishna, Bheem are the new cartoon idols for children

Rasul Bailay and Priyanka Mehra — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:42:00 GMT

New Delhi: After nearly two decades, the gods are back on Indian television, but they are no longer the staid, overdressed avatars of Doordarshan’s Mahabharat and Ramayan.

Click here to view a slideshow of popular cartoons based on Indian mythology

Hindu mythology grabbed the attention of viewers in the 1980s, now mythological cartoons have snagged their children.

Television’s new animated gods play ice-hockey and travel on snowboards and jazzy bicycles, that is, when they’re not fighting demons that resemble Jurassic Park-style monsters.

Mythological cartoons such as Krishna, a central figure in the Mahabharat; Hanuman, the monkey god, who helped Lord Ram invade Lanka to rescue Sita; Ganesha, the elephant god; and Bheem, the Mahabharat’s mighty warrior prince, are driving growth in the children’s genre and outranking traditional favourites such as Tom and Jerry and Popeye.

Leading the kids pack for several months now has been Chhota Bheem, a show that runs on Pogo, one of the two children’s channels run by Turner International, a unit of Time Warner Inc. According to TAM Media Research Pvt. Ltd, a television audience measurement firm, the show is ranked No. 2 for the week ended 7 November.

Of the other channels in the space, Nick shows Little Krishna in Hindi and English while Kids Media India Pvt. Ltd’s Spacetoon channel is planning a slew of mythological cartoons next year.

They’re all seeking to appeal to viewers like Vinayak Swaroop, who, until recently, counted Spiderman and Tom and Jerry as his favourite cartoon characters. Now the six-year-old is a bigger fan of Lord Ram, thanks to the animated movies he watches on Pogo. “I like Ramji because he kills Ravana,” Swaroop says.

Like Swaroop, an increasing number of Indian children are getting hooked to a host of animated characters drawn from the pantheons of Hindu mythological warriors.

When Nick decided to suspend the airing of Little Krishna to prevent viewer fatigue, Joshua Gaikwad’s father tried shopping for a DVD to help with his three-year-old son’s mealtimes. “My son got used to eating his meals while watching Little Krishna on TV, so when the channel stopped showing it, it became a tough job for my wife and me to get him to eat because he was hooked,” says Joshua’s father Pramod Gaikwad.

Superhero for masses: Little Krishna and his friends.

Eventually, public pressure from people like Gaikwad forced Nick to put the serial back on the air less then two months after it had been suspended.

“I went looking for DVDs everywhere, but couldn’t get it in the market and was just relieved when the channel put the show back on,” he said.

The appeal crosses over to families as well. Rashmi Swaroop also likes watching the serials along with her son Vinayak. “The bottomline is that the stories show our culture, tradition and religion,” says Rashmi. “Inculcating traditional values in children is very important especially in today’s world.”

Business opportunity

That’s led to more advertisers on kids’ channels, not just those targeting children. They include Gillette India Ltd, Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Co. Ltd, Aegon Religare Life Insurance Co. Ltd, Life Insurance Corp. of India and even ads for cricketing events such as the Indian Premier League.

For the Indian animation industry, otherwise mainly known for working on projects outsourced by major global firms, mythological serials are a harbinger of new business opportunities. It’s an easy source to mine and the stories are immediately identifiable.

“It’s not so much about mythology as it is about the Indian animation industry, which is at a very nascent stage right now,” says Krishna Desai, director of programming for Turner India, speaking about the country’s Rs2,000 crore animation industry. “Developing content around tried-and-tested stories such as the wonderful myriad stories that make up Indian mythology is, we find, the best place to start.”

With mythologicals, there is no risk associated with the creation of a new character.

“Every time you make a character, you have to spend probably twice or thrice the amount to make the character into a brand,” says Ashish S.K., CEO of Big Animation (I) Pvt. Ltd, a unit of the Reliance-Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. In a bid to minimize risks, “you go with all the stories and brands that are already existing”.

But even with popular bankable characters, producers wanted to leave little to chance. They carried out extensive research to make the serials relevant to the current generation of children who have access to the best of global animation.

Point of reference

Big Animation enlisted the research services of the India Heritage Foundation, a unit of the International Society of Krishna Consciousness. Jeffrey Scott, the Los Angles-based Emmy Award-winning scriptwriter who’s worked on animation properties such as Dragon Tales and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, was hired to handle the writing on Little Krishna. Vincent Edwards, one of the directors of the Spiderman television series, also came on board.

Hyderabad-based Green Gold Animation Pvt. Ltd has been producing content since 2000, but it was the animation movie series on the life of Krishna, which started airing in 2006 on Cartoon Network, that was the “turning point” for the company. Green Gold’s Chhota Bheem and Krishna and Balram are currently running on Cartoon Network.

Big Animation doesn’t just want to make cartoons for children. It plans to turn the latter part of Krishna’s life into an animation series meant for grown-ups that can be shown on the general entertainment and movie channels in nine different Indian languages. The firm also plans to take the series international next year and try and sell it to channels in about 60 countries.

Nina Elavia Jaipuria, senior vice-president of Nick India, is optimistic that Indian mythological cartoons will find a global audience as well. “There is no reason why Little Krishna can’t be as big as a Superman or Spiderman,” she says.

rasul.b@livemint.com

Love in the time of rain

Sanjukta Sharma — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:09:00 GMT

The Bhatt (Mahesh and Mukesh) stable isn’t known to produce wispy, vanilla films about good women and bad men. Gangster, Murder, Jannat—in these films, unmarried couples live together, the woman is often a wreck and an alcoholic, the hero is often a killer or a bookie. Not reason enough to make them good films, but I always look forward to a film produced by Mahesh Bhatt. In his prime, Bhatt made films that shattered all existing moral perimeters in Hindi films, inciting censors and audiences alike—a kind of sensibility needed in our movies.

Run of the mill: The city of Mumbai gets drowned in the deluge of clichés churned out by the Bhatts.

For the past few years, however, his banner Vishesh Films has just been a factory, churning these out over and over again. All the films have the same kind of music, the same kind of relationships, the same heartbreak and violence, and Emraan Hashmi’s kisses. It’s a formula that worked some years ago, and Bhatt and his men are yet to break out of that mould. The latest, Tum Mile, directed by Kunal Deshmukh (who also directed Jannat), is another jab at that formula.

It is an ordinary love story. Akshay (Hashmi), a struggling artist, falls in love with Sanjana (Soha Ali Khan), the daughter of a rich man who doesn’t have any time for her. She is a magazine editor, in a loveless relationship with a man who works with her father. Akshay and Sanjana fall madly in love and move in together as songs loop in and out in the background. The title song is hummable, and in sound and meter, exactly like other former hit songs from Vishesh Films—soppy lyrics about passionate love, laced with snappy electronic beats.

It’s when Akshay goes through a particularly bad phase and is virtually penniless that egos come into play. After much deliberation and hysterical show-downs with his professionally successful girlfriend, he settles for a mundane, money-making job. The magic wears off and the couple drifts apart. Till then, the story is believable, even largely convincing.

The souring relationship is intercut—and the film begins with—the subplot: the Mumbai deluge of 26 July 2005. Long after Akshay and Sanjana have broken up, they board the same flight from London to Mumbai. Upon arriving, they become two of the countless Mumbaikars trapped on the city’s flooded streets. Akshay goes in search of his long lost girlfriend who he last saw at the airport, getting into a car. And no big surprise here—he finds her. But will they mend past mistakes, reconnect and reunite?

The Mumbai deluge is in the consciousness of the city. Every Mumbai person and those who were visiting the city that day have a story. To use it as the backdrop for a love story is a clever dramatic device. But to make it just that is insensitive and infantile. The director portrays the catastrophe in such a way that it could have been happening in any other city. Mumbai is invisible in the film, and if anything, comes across as a menacing city, drowning thousands of humans.

Hashmi’s performance is no different from his earlier ones: He has a few staple expressions. Khan, who showed promise in Sudhir Mishra’s Khoya Khoya Chand, is painfully laboured in some scenes. Towards the end, their tears and dialogues bored me, and made me ask: So what if they still love each other?

Through it all, the writer of the film tries to answer some philosophical questions, such as the meaning of art and how it is antithetical to money. The answers are trite, and as shallow as the entire narrative.

Watch Tum Mile, if you have to, only for the first 1 hour, when the relationship is real, has some great moments, and rings true.

Tum Mile released in theatres on Friday.

*********

Deep Impact

Doomsday: John Cusack at the 2012 premiere in LA this month.

Director Roland Emmerich’s latest doomsday drama, ‘2012’, starring John Cusak, is strictly for those who were swept away by his earlier films: ‘Godzilla’ and ‘Independence Day’. It begins with the misapprehension that according to the Mayan calendar, 2012 will mark the end of the world. Emmerich takes this bit of unscientific forecast and makes a movie of enormous scale and mind-boggling special effects. Solar flares, earth-heating neutrinos and shipwrecks fill up this long film.

2012 released in theatres on Friday.

Slideshow: Doodling for Google finalists

Saabira Chaudhuri — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:27:00 GMT

Bullock cart to Chandrayan by Shounak Dey, 5th standard, Guwahati.

Ten-year-old Puru Pratap Singh may have walked away as the winner in the Doodle4Google contest with his “My India – Full of Life’ drawing, but the contest was likely a close one.

Click here to view slideshow

From a “bullock cart to Chandrayaan” to a depiction of India’s musical instruments, here’s a look at some of the creative logos that children around India came up with for the search engine.

Also Read The big ‘G’ and the little ‘e’ have gotten the least action

Jetix to be rebranded as Disney XD

Priyanka Mehra — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:19:00 GMT

New Delhi: Walt Disney Television International India’s Jetix cartoon channel will be rebranded as Disney XD from 14 November or what is celebrated as Children’s Day in India.

The channel was first brought to India in 2004 as Toon Disney and the name was changed to Jetix in 2007. The kids channel ranks fourth among the seven channel in the kids genre with a market share of 10.2%, according to data for the week ended 7 November from TAM Media Research Pvt. Ltd, a television audience measurement agency.

ESD is the highest bidder for IPL coverage

Gouri Shah — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:19:00 GMT

Mumbai: Entertainment & Sports Direct (ESD), a sports and entertainment content acquisitions firm, on Thursday emerged as the highest bidder for theatrical rights to all Indian Premier League (IPL) matches for seasons 2010 through 2019.

ESD’s bid of Rs330 crore is subject to approval by the IPL governing council. The only other bid was from Triplecom Media.

The deal will give ESD exclusive exhibition rights for audiences in cinema halls, stadia, ships, buses, trains, armed service establishments, hospitals, bars, hotels, restaurants, airports, railway stations, shopping malls, offices, construction sites, oil rigs, clubs, auditoriums, spas, salons and other similar public venues. IPL’s 2010 season is scheduled to begin 12 March in Hyderabad.

“We believe that this agreement will help us take the IPL action direct to the fans on the large screen,” Lalit Modi, IPL’s chairman and commissioner, said in a statement. Arun Rangachari, director, ESD said there were “significant untapped business opportunities” that would be addressed by this association.

ESD, promoted by DAR Capital Group, an investment advisory and private equity firm, is a company focused on sports and entertainment related content acquisition. The company has tied up with UFO Moviez and Valuable Media for theatrical and public exhibition in India and key-global markets. UFO Moviez Ltd is the largest satellite based digital cinema network in the country with over 1700 screens. The move to screen matches in cinemas could be a positive for the theatre business, which typically suffers during the IPL season as movie goers stay away to watch what is largely night-time cricket.

Upswing in Indian art market confidence

Anindita Ghose — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:15:00 GMT

New Delhi: The Indian art market’s recovery could take place earlier than expected, according to a just-out report by London-based art market research firm ArtTactic Ltd. The report says that there is renewed confidence in the market, which had dipped to an all-time low six months ago.

Its current confidence indicator for the Indian art market is pegged at 49, just under the 50 mark. The 50 mark indicates that there are an equal number of positive and negative responses on the outlook for the art market in the short term. In May, the same indicator was in the negative territory, pegged at 20.

Also See Arty Facts (Graphics)

The ArtTactic Indian art market confidence indicator for modern and contemporary art is based on interviews with 89 players in the Indian art market. While only 19% of the respondents in May believed the Indian contemporary art market would recover within two years, this has gone up to 33% in October.

Signs of a thawing market have been visible over the last few months. Neha Kirpal, associate director of the India Art Summit that held its second edition in August in New Delhi this year, says that sales at art fairs and auctions are rising. Sree Goswami, director of Project 88, the only Indian gallery to participate in the prestigious Frieze Art Fair in London, was there last month and found the mood at the fair surprisingly upbeat: she sold seven of the 12 works on offer to international buyers with a specific interest in Indian contemporary art.

Sales figures released by art auction houses corroborate these sentiments: In its March auction, Sotheby’s sold 76 of the 139 lots on offer (54.7%) while its September auction sold 63 out of the 89 lots on offer (70.8%). More dramatic are the Indian auction house SaffronArt’s comparative results: Its March auction realized Rs7.8 crore against an estimate of Rs13.2 crore, while its September auction realized Rs17.5 crore, exceeding its Rs16.4 crore estimate.

Interest revival: A 19 August photo of the Indian Art Summit held at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi. Rajkumar / Mint

“It was a state of not knowing that prompted market experts to estimate a recovery in two or more years. Things look far better now—success at art fairs such as Frieze and Basel, and recent auction results have put everyone at ease,” says Kirpal. She adds that the number of galleries signing up for the next edition of the India Art Summit has also gone up compared to this year. Summit organizers have booked 8,000 sq. m of space (up from 4,500 sq. m this year) and expect to accommodate 20 more galleries. Kirpalrefutes the negative impact on the market by investors whose money is locked in underperforming art funds.

Dinesh Vazirani, CEO of SaffronArt, corroborates this by saying that the market has shifted from being an investors’ market to a collectors’ market. “The speculative investors are not part of this current growth spurt yet. We now have established collectors and new collectors coming into the fray.”

Besides keeping tabs on the overall market sentiment, the ArtTactic report also tracks confidence levels in individual artists and “survival ratings” for 15 modern and 16 contemporary artists. Among the modern masters, artists such as F.N. Souza, Zarina Hashmi and Jagdish Swaminathan whose indices had remained in the positive territory even in May, show a greater upswing. Amongst the contemporary artists, most striking are the indices for Thukral and Tagra, Subodh Gupta, Bharti Kher, N.S. Harsha and Jitish Kallat whose indices come back to positive territory after hitting negative lows in the May 2009 report.

Sceptics are wary of putting too much store by the ArtTactic report as they feel that the respondents surveyed stand to benefit by projecting a positive market sentiment. Anders Petterson, managing director of ArtTactic, says that this bias is dealt with by making sure the survey sample is a balanced mix between the trade such as galleries, auction houses (domestic and international), domestic and international collectors, investors, curators, historians, critics and writers. “It’s a cross-section of the most important players in the Indian art market. Many of them have a long-term interest in the market, and hence their answers will not be driven by short-term decisions,” he says.

Petterson mentions a significant increase in both subscriptions and enquires for bespoke research from the Indian art market client base since the beginning of 2009.

Maithili Parekh, deputy director of Sotheby’s, feels that the ArtTactic report is of value as it is the only available quantifiable report of the Indian art market. “But I would caution against a sole reliance on quantified surveys such as this,” she adds.

Art market quick facts

Top end of the market regains confidence

In May 2009, the ArtTactic confidence survey showed that there was zero confidence in the higher-end of the modern Indian art market. In the last reading in October 2009, 16% of the respondents were positive to the top end of the Indian art market (works valued at $1 million and above), and 25% of the respondents were positive to the $500,000 to $1million price bracket

Prices go down; speculation

The liquidity in the Indian art auction market is down 54% since September 2008, when Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Saffronart raised $23.9 million.

The recent sales in September 2009, raised a total of $11 million. 61% of the respondents believe the modern Indian market could face more downward pressure on prices.

In the contemporary Indian market, 75% of the respondents believe that prices will continue to decrease. However with an expected downward pressure on prices, the risk of speculation has re-entered the market, after a significant drop in May 2009.

The ArtTactic Speculation Barometer shows a 21% increase in the contemporary Indian market. Respondents surveyed expressed concern that significantly lower prices are providing an opportunity for speculators to re-enter the market.

anindita.g@livemint.com

Andrew Lack | There’s room for all in the US, but not in India

Shuchi Bansal — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:54:00 GMT

New Delhi: This is Andrew Lack’s third visit to India this year. During the last visit, the CEO of Bloomberg Multimedia signed up with Ronnie Screwvala’s business news channel UTVi for the entry of Bloomberg’s television into India. UTV’s business news channel has since been re-christened Bloomberg-UTV. Lack, who was president and COO of GE-owned NBC before he joined Sony Music Entertainment, spoke about his plans for Bloomberg TV. Edited excerpts:

Bloomberg TV is very late in coming to India. The business news channel market is already very crowded.

Going strong: Bloomberg Multimedia’s Andrew Lack says the challenge is to bring the product to a larger, broader consumer audience and that the firm is making a transition from financial news to business news. Rajkumar / Mint

We are very late in coming to India. I am embarrassed and surprised and I don’t know why we are so late. I have been with Bloomberg only for a year. When I first came to the company and I asked what are the things you’d like me to focus on, the top managers told me “India”. I immediately began to look at the market. The timing, as it turned out, was very good for us. There were a number of potential partners who were interested in Bloomberg.

One of them being NDTV. You were in talks with them. What happened?

I don’t want to speak about that. It is ancient history. They are a very fine group.

But you were negotiating very hard with them.

It wasn’t a matter of negotiation.

So what clinched the deal in favour of UTV?

To be honest, I knew in half an hour after I had met Ronnie (Screwvala) and Govind (Raj Ethiraj) in their offices that they were the right partners for us. Actually, I am just a television producer and a journalist. I’ve been kicked upstairs to a corner desk. When I walk into a newsroom I am looking for that connection to the right editors, reporters and producers. And in Ronnie’s case, to the right leader. The decision was straight from the gut.

How much equity are you picking in the channel and, if more foreign direct investment is allowed, will you increase your stake?

We still have to go through the approval process in India and I am not able to speak about the details. As for FDI (foreign direct investment), we are not looking at the venture from that perspective. We need to make the product first before we think any further about the investment.

But worldwide, CNBC continues to be the market leader, including in India.

CNBC is the leader only in the US and not anywhere outside the US. I have seen the figures for Europe and Asia and Bloomberg is doing just fine. I have affection for CNBC (its part of NBC where Lack worked) but it is not a leader outside the US. We have a global business that is very strong.

But where do you stand in the US?

We are No. 2. To be fair, Fox Business is also No. 2. Bloomberg has been in the market for long but it has not been focused on providing a consumer product. Competitively, there is room for all in the US but may be not in India. But India is too big a market to ignore. Maybe CNBC will not be so dominant and the marketshare will change.

It is believed that channels that focused on business news rather than the stock market news have not worked.

Today, a global business executive wants to know about the markets but he also wants to know about good stories, good companies, good CEOs and even the ones that are not so good. The world is changing so rapidly and markets such as India, China and Russia are having such a dramatic effect on the way global business is done that just to focus on a market or the markets is half a channel. Also, to just focus on global business economy and not bring the excitement of the markets is to miss a big story.

Is the multimedia division of Bloomberg profitable?

I have no joy in saying this, but no. It is not profitable and it will take a while to get there. The multimedia piece includes television, Internet and radio.

Bloomberg has such a strong professional audience and the Bloomberg terminal is so well regarded that Bloomberg Multimedia was in its shadow.

That’s my challenge to bring Multimedia to a larger, broader consumer audience. We are making a transition from financial news to business news on the multimedia side.

How did you transform from being a producer to being a CEO?

I was trained by one of the masters in the business. Jack Welch of GE. He was my business teacher. He brought me to NBC.

Govt nod to policy to digitalise cable TV operations

PTI — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:24:00 GMT

New Delhi: Two years after TRAI submitted its recommendations, Government on Thursday gave its nod to a policy to digitalise cable TV operations throughout the country, including remote areas.

Under the Headend in the Sky or ‘HITS´ policy, the operator uplinks signals of TV channels of different broadcasters to their satellite, enabling cable operators to downlink these signals for further distribution to subscribers through their cable network in a digital form.

“The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved the proposal of my ministry to issue policy guidelines for HITS operators, that provide for a framework within which the service providers will operate,” information and broadcasting minister Ambika Soni said.

“Though the policy is not mandatory, it would enable existing cable network operators to switch to HITS technology and go digital to transmit TV signals to their subscribers,” she said, adding that the capital investment and operational costs would come down drastically through it.

“The total direct and indirect foreign investment, including FDI, would be up to 74%, Soni informed, adding: “prior approval of the FIPB will be required if the FDI crossed 49%. The current FDI limit for direct to home (DTH) service is 49%.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had submitted its recommendations on various policy issues related to the HITS service to the ministry in October 2007.

“The policy would restrict cross-media holding of 20% of the total paid-up equity for various segments of broadcasting services,” Soni said.

“These restrictions have been provided to avoid vertical integration and to promote competition,” she said, adding that the HITS services would be allowed in both ‘C-band´ and ‘Ku-band´.

The HITS operators would not be permitted to provide signals directly to subscribers, though they can do so if they are also cable or multi-system operators, through the existing distribution network.

The minister said that remote areas which do not have conditional access system (CAS) would be covered by the HITS and the operators can uplink only from the Indian soil by installing encryption codes.

“HITS would not only help increase the penetration of cable market further into rural areas where it has been absent because of unviability, but also help in further reduction of prices of set top boxes and lead to consolidation of the cable market,” Soni said.

“It would also help subscribers with a wide choice of digital channels, better picture quality and value-added services at an affordable price,” she said.

“There would be no restriction on number of permissions and all those found eligible and fulfilling terms and conditions would be able to apply for licence,” Soni said, adding that HITS would provide employment opportunities to the youth.