Another webcasting company knocks WWW doors

Mumbai based broadband company Skynet Web TV Ltd is set to tap the Indian bourses with an Initial Public Offering (IPO) of the size of Rs 21 billion. Each equity share of the face value of Rs 10 would be priced at a premium of Rs 30 each. Aryaman Financial will be the lead manager for the issue.

The company headquartered in Mulund, the central suburb of Mumbai plans to offer broadband services through its entertainment portal on the Net and software services. The entertainment portal will be designed to supply rich media content (streaming technology) to netizens utilising both narrow and broadband connections. The site contains free and paid services. The free services consist of chat, e-mail, finance, classifieds, shopping & travel and paid service will consist webcasting movies and television serials.

The company targets the NRI community interested in viewing Indian movies and those who do not have access to cinema houses or other sources to see latest Hindi or other regional Indian language movies. The company will acquire rights for Hindi movies and television serials for webcasting. The streaming content can be viewed through 28.8 kbps and 56.6 kbps dial-up connections, DSL connections and Internet-over-cable TV.

The revenue model of the company comprises of a mix of ad revenues and subscription fees. The company will use the reputed international payment gateway Cyber Cash for clearing online transactions through credit cards. The company plans to charge an average US $ 5.00 per movie.

The Net is being slowly flooded with webcasting portals. How many of them will survive? Where will all the content come from? Skynet Web TV Ltd might face a similar problem of acquiring quality content. But the company seems to be determined to make it big.

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