(21 December 2005 9:00 pm)

MUMBAI: Star India's second bouquet of channels will not be visible on Indian Cable Net, Kolkata's largest multi system operator, which was bought out by Siticable earlier this year.

The second Star bouquet includes Star One, Hungama TV and the two Walt Disney channels -- Disney Channel and Toon Disney.

Speaking to Indiantelevision.com, a Star India spokesperson confirmed that the second bouquet of channels would not be available on Indian Cable Net.

When contacted,a senior executive of Siticable stated that the boxes were distributed by Star for promotional activity between the period September to November 2005. This was mainly undertaken to give the feel of the second bouquet of channels.

Pointing out that Siticable later realised that Star was billing them from September onwards only, the Siticable senior executive said over phone from Delhi, "We realised this (billing) was a breach of an understanding reached between MSO and the broadcaster. Since we could not could not pay the subscription money from our own pockets, we decided to return the decoder boxes."

The executive further pointed out that the Kolkata market was "not ready" for a paid second bouquet of channels. Indian Cable Net has a subscriber base of approximately 300,000 cable homes.

Star's first bouquet of channels, including Star Plus, however, is available on Indian Cable Net.