Star Group Limited and UTV announced in Chennai today the formation of a joint venture which will oversee Tamil regional language channel Vijay TV. Star has taken a controlling 51 per cent majority stake in Vijay Televisions Ltd, the UTV subsidiary which manages the channel, while the remaining 49 per cent remains with other shareholders, primarily UTV. The JV covers content, distribution, ad sales and marketing.

The JV will focus on content production and distribution in Tamil and will enable Vijay TV programming to reach new markets within India and overseas under the Star bouquet, an official release says.

Peter Mukerjea, CEO STAR India, said: ?Vijay TV is an established brand in the market and brings to the table local experience and equity with the consumers. Vijay TV will complement our success in Hindi language programming, and help us penetrate deeper into South India ? the synergies are obvious.?

?The regional language market has huge growth potential and a joint venture with Star will give Vijay TV the right impetus to take it to the next level,? said Ronnie Screwvala, Chairman of UTV.

Mukerjea ruled out any change in the name of the channel and said he expected the channel to be ready to pose a serious challenge to its rivals before the year was out. Mukerjea said they would be refurbishing Vijay TV‘s film library as well as pumping money into development of programming but would provide no details about the roadmap that had been set out to reposition the channel.

On what would happen to CEO Rohit Adya in the new dispensation, Mukerjea said he would be returning to UTV. Ajay Vidyasagar who has come in as COO will be heading the channel.

While the broadcast of Vijay TV channel stays with UTV under its subsidiary Vijay Broadcasting, the JV will provide content, distribution, ad sales and marketing to the channel.

The new company has reportedly been floated to circumvent the statute that foreign companies cannot hold more than 20 per cent in a satellite channel while uplinking from India.

It is too early in the day to predict how far Star‘s acquisition of Vijay TV will impact on the the channel stakes in Tamil Nadu with Kalanithi Maran‘s Sun TV being far and away the leader but Tamil television is bound to see a sea change with the big boys Star and Zee (Asianet Bharati - soon to be Zee Alpha) making their entry.

As ad spend becomes increasingly more difficult to access, channels are having to innovate to make sure the ad rupee goes as long a way as possible. Towards this end, Zee TV has introduced a unique initiative titled ‘Break Free Comedy Band‘.

"Break-Free" is meant for the comedy programmes that are shown from Monday to Friday in the 7:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. slot. Fevicol is the sponsor and this initiative will run on Zee TV till August 17. That the move is also a bid to boost ratings should not be forgotten of course.

Partha Sinha, director of marketing for Zee Telefilms Ltd says: "The Break-Free concept is a pioneering attempt to provide innovative viewing solutions for viewers and at the same time offer interesting communication solutions to advertisers. Feedback from viewers and research figures indicate a strong positive response to our initiative.

In addition to positive viewer response, the advertising community has also shown strong interest in the Break-Free concept. The Break-Free initiative has been developed primarily for Fevicol, since the concept of a seamless half hour programme fits in very well with the Fevicol brand positioning. We are open to developing similar advertising solutions which are in harmony with the advertiser‘s brand positioning and add incremental benefits to the advertising rupee."

Some of the programmes that give viewers the unique Break Free experience are ‘Aasman Say Tapki‘ on Monday, ‘Apun To Bas Vaise Hi‘ on Tuesday, ‘Yah Hai Mumbai Meri Jaan‘ on Wednesday, ‘Devrani Jethani‘ on Thursday, and ‘Zee Talkies‘ on Friday.

The Entermedia 2001 conference kicked off in Mumbai‘s western suburb of Andheri today with the issue of addressability forming the core of discussions at the session on television and broadcasting.

IN Cable‘s Ashok Mansukhani, speaking for cable operators, pointed that the cable industry, like the film industry is facing difficulties with the recent announcement of a 5 per cent service tax on cable operations passed in mid-July. "Nobody exactly knows on what the sales tax is to be paid, and the interesting part the service tax is that cable operator are supposed to file a declaration and if your declaration is incorrect then you are liable for prosecution," he pointed out.

Meanwhile, Sandeep Goyal, group broadcasting CEO, Zee Network, pointed out that the cost of creating content for television had escalated without a concomitant increase in revenues from advertising and this pointed to the need to bring in more addressability by way of cable operators declaring their actual subscriber base.

Stating that it were the consumer who were reluctant to pay the full amount for the subscription, Mansukhani said the current rate that cable operators pay per subscriber was Rs 104 while the consumer paid only RS 100.

Though much was said about problems dogging cable operators, the addressablity issue and what should be done to come to terms with it, what eventually remained unaddressed was a concrete proposal to tackle this problem.

The panelists consisted of Kiran Karnik, former Discovery Channel head who recently was appointed as the president of NASSCOM, Ravi Gupta, CEO B4U; Ravina Raj Kohli, CEO, HFCL-Nine Broadcasting India Ltd; Ashok Mansukhani, Incable; Sandeep Goyal, group broadcasting CEO, Zee Network; K. Kunhikrishnan, deputy director-general, DD; Rajesh Pant, Sony Entertainment Television and RK Gupta from Prasar Bharti.

Karnik pointed out that if the next phase of growth in the industry was to be kickstarted, it was imperative that subscription rates be hiked to at least RS 300.

Gupta said there many inefficiencies of the products that go across channels. Systems were required which would provide better utilisation of products.

Is the cable industry in India going to see the size and growth that has happened in the developed countries like the US? Can we expect international cable operators pumping money into last mile connectivity? How soon is the pay market expected to develop for the broadcasters? What is the realistic number of channels the Indian industry can support - both nationally as well as regionally? Does DTH have a realistic future in India? These were some of the questions which received no satisfactory answers.