CAS AS CAS CANNOT

The number one event of the year has to be CAS and if there were any awards for the Fiasco of The Year, then that too would be bagged by CAS. The government’s attempt to take along the industry during the introduction of addressability in Indian cable homes has proved to be an almost non-starter. Reason: protests notwithstanding, certain segments of the industry certainly lobbied hard against a smooth rollout of CAS, while another segment tried its level best --- and is still trying --- to have it implemented.

The result, of course, was total chaos when CAS was sought to be implemented in South Delhi towards the fag end of the year, after a lukewarm response in Chennai. There were so many issues --- and many more kept cropping up along the way --- that all the stakeholders tied themselves in knots over CAS with the consumer getting caught in the crossfire, whether it be between the cable ops and broadcasters or broadcasters and the government.

If the courts said CAS had to be implemented in South Delhi --- petitioned by the cable fraternity and a set-top box manufacturer --- politicians (amongst whom were Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit) raised a hue and cry, dubbing CAS anti-consumer and criticised the Central government for messing up things.

If that were not enough, MSOs and cable ops started out claiming they had sold over 30,000 boxes in Delhi, a figure that one cable op reluctantly admitted was "on the higher side". Reason: “The hype had to be built around the box,” he explained. No wonder most houses in Delhi continue to get pay channels sans a box till date. While the tussle between the politicians and the industry continues, it has claimed its toll too. Blaming a joint secretary level official for not doing enough in the run up to the CAS rollout, the I&B ministry transferred him out of the ministry.

As for other metros, CAS got off to a smooth start in Chennai in September (smooth as in no political impediments, set top box rollout has been anything but smooth). Mumbai escaped due to Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray's acerbic intervention and Kolkata slipped away unnoticed amid a mire of parliamentary indecisiveness.

If the year began with CAS, then it is also ending with CAS. The question is whether we are witnessing the beginning of the end of CAS for the near term at least.

MORE NEWS IS GOOD NEWS

Finally, Aaj Tak had competition. Divorced couple Star News and NDTV came up with their individual offerings, Sahara threatened to launch at least 26 regional channels and finally launched three, Aaj Tak produced a sibling Headlines Today, which till the year end, remained a sickly TVTN offspring. Aaj Tak the original held on to the leadership position grimly, but channel share did suffer, particularly when in December, pubcaster Doordarshan put up stiff competition in the form of DD News, a smarter, slicked up version of the channel that had folded up in January 2002 to make way for the still unsung and virtually unknown DD Bharati. DD News this time replaced DD Metro, which was still a steady revenue earner for the pubcaster at the time of its demise.

Within weeks, DD was tom tomming the fact that even in C&S households, DD News had climbed up to second position, after Aaj Tak, and far ahead of Star News, NDTV and the rest. The nay sayers however, aver that this is in large measure due to the must carry clause that DD news enjoys vis-a-vis the cable operator.

The four Sahara channels that ultimately launched, after a promising start, dwindled to settle at the bottom of the heap; while Zee News, Star News and NDTV Hindi shine intermittently. NDTV's angrezi avatar NDTV 24x7 does claim the lead in the English news channel stakes though.

The year also ended without Zee's promised business news channel materialising and a big question mark over Videocon Dhoots' plans to launch one. Good news for CNBC-TV18 which continues to rule this space unchallenged.

It was a tough year for Star, though not so much on the programming and distribution front. Star had a job on its hands fending off a concerted effort by the Indian media barons to bring it down off its lofty perch. Banding together under the title Indian Media Group (IMG), the IMG's one-point agenda was to oppose the foreign (read Star) media onslaught.

Pertinently, those who stayed away included the KK Birla-controlled Hindustan Times Pvt. Ltd. and once upon a time champion of the swadeshi bandwagon, Aveek Sarkar's Anand Bazar Patrika (ABP) group, which publishes The Telegraph newspaper from Kolkata.

Some major corporate restructuring saw some Indian minority shareholders being replaced by ABP, which now holds 74 per cent equity stake in MCCS with the rest being held by Star. The restructuring was done to conform to the new uplinking norms announced by the government for news channels in March. FIPB has approved MCCS proposal for foreign investment but this is subject to the ministry’s permission for uplinking a news and current affairs television channel from India.

Star faced similar problems on the radio front as well. MBPL, which is the license holder for Radio City, got a restraint order from the Mumbai high court that the government cannot force it to give information about Digi Wave, a Star India subsidiary, with which the FM radio licence holder has an agreement for marketing, ad sales and content. Radio City’s operations had been brought under the scanner as the government thinks that it is Star that actually controls Radio City’s operations and the licence holder has outsourced most critical functions of the operation. Since foreign investment is not allowed, Radio City has come under government scanner.

That not only ate up a large chunk of ad spend for the year, but also raised a hot and continuing debate on the efficacy of having women anchors on a cricket commentary team. Mandira Bedi's attire was as much spoken about as her lack of knowledge of the game, but that did not deter viewers from gluing to Max for their daily dose of cricket and Mandira.

Max followed it up with a Rolling Stones concert, but interest in the channel dwindled later, with Sony not able to drum up enough cricket and events to sustain it. The World Cup managed to advertisers to touch television ad spend in the region of Rs 4.5 billion, and both terrestrial Doordarshan and satellite Max walked away counter claiming that they had better eyeballs than each other. Of course, DD lacked Max's Deewana Bana De USP - Mandira!

After a long while, SET climbed back into the reckoning, with the desi adaptation of the Latin American acquisition Yo Soy Betty La Fea. Alongside some astuter marketing, getting Tony and Deeya Singh in from the wilderness to produce the show seems to have worked, for Jassi with her metallic grin, dowdy clothes and puzzled look has seemingly enthralled all the SECs and TGs, across metros and towns alike. Although it was a risk pitching the plain Jane Jassi against bejewelled bahus and scheming saas', Sony has capitalised well on viewer fatigue with the family dramas currently on air.

Although creative head Rajesh Devraj (one of those behind the conception of Jassi) quit at the fag end of the year, the channel seems now ready with programming to at last make Star sit up and take note. With Tarun Katial, who quit Star in October, supposed to join Sony according to the hyperactive grapevine, has the task become that much easier?

Zee Telefilms kept up its tradition of juggling its top brass, like every year. Zee TV President Apurva Purohit, who was brought in in mid 2002, quit as the year came to a close, unable probably to change the set ways at the behemoth that is Zee. Programming innovations like Awaz - Dil Se Dil Tak and the trend setting Astitva - Ek Prem Kahani notwithstanding, Zee could not quite make it to the viewer's heart and remained a distant third in the stakes.

In the last week of December, Zee chairman Subhash Chandra engineered yet another bout of restructuring, making trusted longtimer Sunil Khanna Zee TV president in place of the outgoing Purohit. Dhiraj Kapuria was made Zee Turner CEO in place of Khanna and Zee Cinema and Music head Yogesh Radhakrishnan handed additional charge of DTH offerings Premier Cinema, Action Cinema and Classic Cinema. Ashwini Yardi will assist in the Zee TV programming along with her usual charges, Zee English and MGM. Having gathered his trusted lieutenants around him should help Chandra tide over the next year without much turnover of personnel.

Finally, the first to get off the ground, rather, to get into homes directly, was Zee's venture DishTV, although other companies too had applied for a DTH licence including Space TV - a company promoted by Star India employees as well as pubcaster Doordarshan, which has got government permission, and expects its DTH operations to begin from April 2004.

Zee's DTH has had a lukewarm response, although the company expects it to pick up in the days ahead. For a Rs 100 plus taxes fee, viewers get a basic bouquet of 48 channels, with an introductory offer of Rs 2990 plus tax for the CPE (Customer Premise Equipment). Star and Sony, however, having refused to join the DishTV platform, the bouquet is currently restricted to the Zee channels and the Alpha clutch of regional and free-to-air (FTA) channels, plus some uncommon channels that are part of the premium tier. While globally the DTH satellite industry has burgeoned with 55 DTH platforms currently worldwide reaching out to 60 million households, the Indian scenario remains bleak, although Zee continues to nurse ambitions of taking its channels where no cable has gone before.

Heads rolled and new ones surfaced at Prasar Bharati too this year. In early January, veteran media personality MV Kamath who is said to be close to the RSS (the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's parent organisation) took over the reigns as Prasar Bharati chairman and got a formal extension of another six years in November.

The irony of the posting is that Kamath had almost refused the post when it was offered to him initially on the grounds of poor health. Obviously cultural fitness is more important than physical fitness when it comes to such postings.

Doordarshan DG S Y Quraishi had to make way for Naveen Kumar, who was appointed in late December, while the hunt for an AIR DG has just been completed with IAS officer from the Tamil Nadu cadre B Singh set to take reins.

Deepak Chaurasia, ex political editor of Aaj Tak, joined as the consulting editor of DD News in the last quarter of the year. Swagat Ghosh, additional director-general in charge of DD News, was shunted out to the low-profile Directorate of Audio Visual Publicity, an organisation under the information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry. Sources say the once upon a time blue-eyed boy of the I&B ministry, Sanjiv Dutta, has replaced Ghosh. New inductees like Chaurasia would report to him.

First there were only three (significant ones that is) - the big Zee, the upstart Balaji Telefilms and the steady TV18, apart from lesser players like Cinevistaas and SABTNL. 2003 however, saw the country opening its arms to three more media initial public offerings. First was the southern soap queen Radhikaa owned Radaan, which went public early this year. BAG Films followed and was received enthusiastically, while Aroon Purie's TV Today Network was the last to enter the market and claimed a huge investor response.

It was supposed to be the programming spectacle of the year, but ended up as a valuable lesson in copyrights regulations for the entire industry. Sahara Manoranjan's Karishma - The Miracles of Destiny got mired in legal tangles after the first episode was telecast in May as US author Barbara Taylor Bradford claimed the serial was a direct lift of her book, A Woman of Substance, without any credit given. Those involved in the serial's production had admitted as much in earlier interviews, but when the case went to court, the broadcaster gave a good fight and eventually won the case against Bradford.

Sahara, of course, also hinted at a rival broadcaster fighting a proxy war in Bradford's name, a charge that was never substantiated. No rival needed to have worried about Karishma's impact on primetime however, as despite being actor Karisma Kapoor's TV launch vehicle, the serial bombed in the TRP stakes when it re-aired from September.

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