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Mumbai Cable ops continue to
do battle with ESPN-Star
The battle
between ESPN-Star Sports has entered another phase. On 24
January cable TV operators in cable TV capital Mumbai extended
their agitation against basic subscription channels ESPN
and Star Sports. That too at a time when India is expected
to play a crucial match against Pakistan as part of the
one-day series in Australia on 25 January. Cable operators
have been protesting the RS 1.51 hike per subscriber to
RS 6.50 that ESPN Software management imposed on them to
continue to redistribute sports channels Star Sports to
subscribers from last week. They had decided to black out
the two channels for three days last week. When the three
day period expired last week they took a decision to extend
the ban indefinitely.
"They are treating us shoddily and at gun point," says Atul
Saraf one of the agitating cable operators. "The contract
they have made us sign to renew telecasting the service
is pretty tough and one-sided. Hence we have decided to
fight."
This time they have got the support of a BJP politician
Kirit Somaiya who has a vested interest in the agitation
as people close to him have been switched off by ESPN Software
on account of non-payment for the basic subscription channel.
Somaiya is taking the fractious cable TV operators as part
of a delegation to the information and broadcasting minister
Arun Jaitley in Delhi to air their grievances.
The cable ops are also giving the entire issue a foreign
invasion slant by saying that the price hikes are being
resorted to mainly by multinational channels who are out
to make pots of unwarranted money out of lay Indian consumers
just because they have rights to cricket which Indian viewers
simply cannot do without.
Star Sports says that the price hike was part of the contract
that the cable TV ops had signed with the channel. It says
it will not bow down to the arm twisting methods of the
cable operators. And they will wait it out.
Cable operators say that it sure is going to be a long wait.
"We have taken away the ESPN and Star Sports decoders from
cable operators who we believe will give in to the bad tactics
of ESPN-Star early," says Saraf. "We are going to fight
till the end." Cable operators involved in the battle in
Mumbai include Shri Bhawani, InCablenet, Siticable, Seven
Star, Channel III, Five Star, Hathway, accounting for almost
all of the city's cable and satellite homes.
Who will blink first? Cable ops or the two channels? Whoever
does will end up benefiting the TV viewer.
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