The The convergence bill may be a long way away but it was very much on the radar screen as the two-day Enter Media 2001 conference organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in Mumbai ended today.

The point was forcefully made in the penultimate as well as the last session of the conference which dealt with the print media and the regulatory environment respectively. Speakers representing the print media decried the government‘s plans to introduce a far more overarching media council to replace the existing Press Council of India. The last session dealing specifically with "governance for the media and entertainment industry" ended with a common consensus that the industry must safeguard its own interests and needed self-regulatory mechanisms put in place. It was agreed that education on the issues involved was critical and that there was a need for an arbitration body which would be able to centralise agreements under one forum.

Chairman the conference task force, Biren Ghose, CEO of UTV Interactive, summed up issues which had a realistic chance of resolution if an organised effort was initiated. These would be included in the white paper to be produced by CII in conjunction with Ernst and Young within a month. That all these issues would be addressed within a time frame of 12 months is what is being promised.

FILMS: 1) Curbing piracy and enforcement. 2) Need for corporatisation of the industry. 3) Nurturing of film professionals - first assistant directors and scriptwriters.

TELEVISION AND BROADCASTING: 1) Addressability - Crucial both on the revenue front as well as enabling proper assessments of connectivity and related issues. 2) Subscriber rates have to go up if the industry was to launch itself into the next phase of growth. 3) Current television ratings systems need to acquire greater credibility as to how representative they are of actual channel and programme penetration.

FM RADIO: 1) Privatisation should continue. 2) Licence fees too high. 3) More FDI (foreign direct investment) inflows needed. MUSIC: All round appreciation for the way the industry has organised itself to curb piracy. Attempt should be to scale up the IMI (Indian Music Industry) model across the entertainment industry.

CONTENT: Build Indian services / content across global markets.

INTERNET AND BROADBAND: 1) Bandwidth issues are best left to the government or at best big corporates. 2) How to use the Internet as a transaction currency. 3) Spread cyber cafes the way STD booths have spread across the country. 4) Work on anti-piracy models for the Net.

FINANCING: 1) Look at a model of a risk reduction formula. 2) Corporatisation 3) Limited partnerships

The battle for the No 4 slot in the general Hindi entertainment channel sweepstakes is hotting up. Sahara TV has refocused itself and is readying for an aggressive marketing and programming assault, so can Sabe TV be far behind?
A press release from the company says that its FPC is being rejigged and a bunch of new shows are being introduced come the first week of September. Popular sitcom Office-Office will air thrice a week. A fun-based programme to be produced and hosted by Ravi Behl and Naaved Jaffrey of Sony Entertainment‘s Boogie Woogie fame titled Paisa Vasool will be introduced, featuring celebrities in each episode and mounted on a lavish scale. A cop-thriller Dial 100 will be shown four days a week from Mondays to Thursdays.

A spanking new one-and-a-half hour afternoon programming band featuring women oriented programmes like a Cookery Show, a Pop Countdown, Swayam (the woman achiever), Utsav, and Drishtikon is also to be introduced.

Additionally, a popular cartoon strip for children will be shown daily from Monday to Friday in the evenings. Variety programmes such as Brahma Vishnu Mahesh, comedies like Daddy Samjha Karo and Yes Boss and dramas like Karam and Sambandh will be featured on the 9.00 pm slot.

With the introduction of fresh programming, Sabe TV‘s FPC will include a daily cartoon strip, a daily sitcom, Aflatoon at 7 pm, the fantasy Alif-Laila at 7.30 pm, comedy Office-Office at 8 pm thrice a week followed by Paisa Vasool, the daily thriller Dial 100 at 8.30 pm and varieties like mythological dramas and weekly comedies at 9 pm and the comedy Shriman Shrimati at 9.30 pm.

Sabe TV, in the release, claims that it has overtaken major players like Sony and Zee in the five major cities (excluding Mumbai) in the key western Indian state of Maharashtra. Market research agency‘s AC Nielsen‘s latest TAM data for the week ending 28 July 2001 shows that Sabe TV has generated higher Gross Rating Points (GRPs) - for the Top 25 programmes in all segments like All 15+ AB, 15 + Female AB, 15 + All ABC and 15 + Females ABC - than Sony Entertainment and Zee TV, the release states.

Television software major TV18 came out with miserable results showing the down turn in media sector. The Net profit has gone down by more than 69 per cent at Rs11.3 million in the quarter ended on 30th June 2001 from 36.9 million in corresponding quarter in last financial year.

Total sales has gone down by 30 per cent to Rs 62.2 million from RS 89.7 million while other income has gone up from RS 6 million to RS 10.3 million

As the total expenses has actually gone up during quarter at RS 48.3 million compared to fall in the sales, total Operating margin also came under pressure, which has gone down to 22 per cent for the first quarter this year from 45 per cent last year.

TV-18‘s consolidated results for the first quarter, which included the performance of its other group companies like Television Eighteen Mauritius and e-eighteen dotcom, showed a net loss of Rs 8.2 million.

The major chunk of revenue for the company (Rs 57 million) came from sales of programming to business channel CNBC India in which TV18 has equity holding. Internet operations, e-commerce and other television software sales accounted for just RS 50 lakh for the quarter under review.

Looking at the improved advertisement revenue and the low cost programming, the company is expected to do well in remaining months in this financial year.