This story first appeared in DNA Money edition on Friday May 27, 2011.
Zee Entertainment and arch-rival Star India have joined hands to jointly aggregate and distribute television channels through an equal-stake joint venture called Media Pro Enterprises India. This was through their content aggregation and distribution entities Zee Turner and Star Den Media Services. Zee Turner is a 74:26 venture between Zee and US giant Turner International, while Star Den is a 50:50 venture between Star India and Den Networks.
Punit Goenka, managing director and CEO of Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd said the deal was first initiated two years back and took a serious turn about 10-12 months ago. The JV will distribute 68 channels some of which will be free to air. “The partnership will change the face of television distribution in this country,” said Goenka.
“It will help bring transparency and further accelerate the pace of digitisation which is a key mandate put out by the government. The joint venture will work towards creating efficiencies in the distribution sector, incentivise digitisation, address the piracy issue and enable content revolution in India,” he added.
With the objective of bringing as many people together from across industry segments, Uday Shankar, CEO, Star India Pvt Ltd, said putting together this joint venture required a great vision and huge amount of sagacity wherein larger interests were put ahead of individual interests. “That is what all four entities are committed to demonstrate,” he said.
It is public knowledge that for most part of the cable and satellite history in the country, Zee and Star have fought and competed as rivals and at times in a very bitter and fierce manner. Under such a scenario, coming together of two media conglomerates is being viewed as a significant development in the Indian television industry.
“Our rivalry has potentially cost the industry $10 billion. And with this alliance, we intend to grow the industry much faster,” Goenka said.
Shankar said the time had come to take the cable and satellite (C&S) television industry to the next level. “This we intend to achieve by delivering better content, choice, quality of experience and making sure that we make a fundamental intervention in the lacklustre financial and business health of the media industry,” he said.
Both Zee and Star refrained from sharing any financial details related to the joint venture.
Industry experts are of the opinion that JV will prove advantageous for the broadcasters. “The monolithic structure will bring (the JV) distribution muscle and pricing power,” said a head of research - media and entertainment affiliated to a leading MNC consultancy firm.
Rahul Kundnani, research analyst, SBICAP Securities Ltd, said, “The deal will boost the subscription revenues of both the broadcasters. Also the deal comes at the right time ahead of digitisation plans announced by the government. They are already commanding almost 70% of the cable subscription revenue. A deal like this gives them more bargaining power to negotiate with the distributors.”
Zee Entertainment and arch-rival Star India have joined hands to jointly aggregate and distribute television channels through an equal-stake joint venture called Media Pro Enterprises India. This was through their content aggregation and distribution entities Zee Turner and Star Den Media Services. Zee Turner is a 74:26 venture between Zee and US giant Turner International, while Star Den is a 50:50 venture between Star India and Den Networks.
Punit Goenka, managing director and CEO of Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd said the deal was first initiated two years back and took a serious turn about 10-12 months ago. The JV will distribute 68 channels some of which will be free to air. “The partnership will change the face of television distribution in this country,” said Goenka.
“It will help bring transparency and further accelerate the pace of digitisation which is a key mandate put out by the government. The joint venture will work towards creating efficiencies in the distribution sector, incentivise digitisation, address the piracy issue and enable content revolution in India,” he added.
With the objective of bringing as many people together from across industry segments, Uday Shankar, CEO, Star India Pvt Ltd, said putting together this joint venture required a great vision and huge amount of sagacity wherein larger interests were put ahead of individual interests. “That is what all four entities are committed to demonstrate,” he said.
It is public knowledge that for most part of the cable and satellite history in the country, Zee and Star have fought and competed as rivals and at times in a very bitter and fierce manner. Under such a scenario, coming together of two media conglomerates is being viewed as a significant development in the Indian television industry.
“Our rivalry has potentially cost the industry $10 billion. And with this alliance, we intend to grow the industry much faster,” Goenka said.
Shankar said the time had come to take the cable and satellite (C&S) television industry to the next level. “This we intend to achieve by delivering better content, choice, quality of experience and making sure that we make a fundamental intervention in the lacklustre financial and business health of the media industry,” he said.
Both Zee and Star refrained from sharing any financial details related to the joint venture.
Industry experts are of the opinion that JV will prove advantageous for the broadcasters. “The monolithic structure will bring (the JV) distribution muscle and pricing power,” said a head of research - media and entertainment affiliated to a leading MNC consultancy firm.
Rahul Kundnani, research analyst, SBICAP Securities Ltd, said, “The deal will boost the subscription revenues of both the broadcasters. Also the deal comes at the right time ahead of digitisation plans announced by the government. They are already commanding almost 70% of the cable subscription revenue. A deal like this gives them more bargaining power to negotiate with the distributors.”
No comments:
Post a Comment