News Broadcasting
InCableNet does its math in the papers on subscription hikes
Two can play at the game. With the Bombay High Court expected to issue a ruling tomorrow on the ongoing spat between the Hinduja Group MSO InCableNet and sports broadcaster ESPN Star Sports, an advertisement appeared in leading Mumbai afternooner Mid Day today detailing how costs for airing all channels have spiralled 475 per cent in the last four years.
InCableNet took the newspaper ad route and gave a detailed breakdown of costs explaining how the current subscription rates were untenable unless conditional access systems were introduced giving viewers the freedom to select what they wished to see.
Earlier it was ESPN Star Sports that took out newspaper ads and distributed leaflets through vendors criticising cable operators as being unreasonable for not signing on to its new subscription rates.
Headlined “What’s your problem Dubeyji (referring to the the local cable operator)?”, the flier asks the question – “How can you say 80 paise a day is too much?” – (which is what the new monthly subscription rate of Rs 24 for the two channels works out to).
With both sides playing out their battle through the media, the court’s ruling in the matter has become that much more crucial.
News Broadcasting
Uma Sudhir signs off from NDTV after 27 years
The executive editor shaped NDTV’s southern reportage for nearly three decades
NEW DELHI: Senior journalist Uma Sudhir has retired from NDTV, bringing to a close a 27-year association with the network.
Sudhir served as executive editor, heading NDTV’s south India editorial operations. Over nearly three decades, she emerged as one of the most recognisable faces of on-ground reporting from the region, with sustained coverage of politics, governance and social issues across Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
At NDTV, Sudhir played a central role in strengthening regional journalism within national television news. Her reporting consistently connected local developments to the national conversation, ensuring stories from the field shaped policy debates beyond studio discussions. Known for her boots-on-the-ground approach, she came to represent a generation of reporters whose authority rested on fieldwork rather than prime-time punditry.
An award-winning journalist, Sudhir is a recipient of the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award and the Chameli Devi Jain Award. Her body of work has been widely recognised for its public-interest focus, spanning elections, governance, gender issues, rural distress, environmental reporting and social justice.
