The Hindu : Star News gets a week's reprieve

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 26, 2003

National

National

Star News gets a week's reprieve

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI JUNE 25. With just about 24 hours to go for it to lose its round-the-clock `live' status, Star News today got a week's reprieve to fulfil conditions for continued uplinking from Indian soil.

The Information & Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry today accepted Star News' plea for a week's extension while the Government made up its mind on the application of its new incarnate — Media Content and Communications Services (MCCS) — in which the now wholly foreign-owned company has reduced its foreign equity to 26 per cent as mandated by the three-month-old uplinking policy for news and current affairs channels.

The fate of Star News has been in doubt for sometime now because the 90-day grace period it had been given in the revised guidelines for uplinking of news and current affairs TV channels from India was to close on June 26.

The extension was given in view of the fact that the Government is still in the midst of processing MCCS' application.

According to the I&B Additional Secretary, Vijay Singh, some verifications were needed. "These pertain mainly to the Home Ministry; primarily the security clearance of the Board of Directors of the new company,'' he said soon after a meeting with the CEO of Star India, Peter Mukherjea.

Besides the Home Ministry, the application has been forwarded to the Department of Space. As to whether the I&B Ministry had cleared the application, Mr. Singh said it would make up its mind after the other Ministries cleared it. Though Mr. Singh was non-committal, the Ministry was said to have sought clarifications on the shareholding pattern of the newly-floated company, as its paid-up capital was only Rs. 1 lakh.

With the new company sending its application for uplinking only last Friday, the Ministry till this Monday was uncertain about whether it could be processed before June 26 even if everything was in order.

For his part, Mr. Mukherjea was tight-lipped about the application and maintained that he had only discussed the Conditional Access System (CAS) with Mr. Singh even as the BJP president, Venkaiah Naidu, today indicated that this new regime in cable television could meet the same fate as VAT if it was not consumer-friendly.

Of the view that the rates proposed by Star, Sony and ESPN-Star Sports last week had been wrongly interpreted, Mr. Mukherjea said his company would come out with a clearly articulated price structure soon.

As for the Ministry, Mr. Singh said the broadcasters would be asked to come up with MRP for every channel besides, of course, keep them at reasonable levels.

Excise duty withdrawn

PTI reports:

The Government today withdrew the 16 per cent excise duty on the set-top boxes to be used in the Conditional Access System (CAS) to view pay TV channels, a decision that may bring down the prices of the boxes by about Rs. 250 to Rs. 300 each.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National