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Operators, Zee trade charges; latter denies merger with STAR

Zee TV has emphatically denied speculative reports about a merger between the network and STAR TV, and also denied that it had been given any rights for terrestrial telecasts in India.

Zee TV vice-president P C Lahiri said group chairman Subhash Chandra had already clarified that there was ''no such agreement or any proposal nor has there been any proposal to merge STAR TV and Zee TV in the manner it has been unduly reported in the press.''

Lahiri described as ''irresponsible, baseless and derogatory'' the assertion made in this regard earlier by Cable Operators Federation of India president Roop Sharma.

Lahiri regretted that Sharma and other cable operators had taken advantage of media speculation to make allegations which were ''not in good taste, were baseless, derogatory and uncalled for''.

Sharma told a press conference in New Delhi that cable operators all over the country had in a memorandum urged Information and Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj to prevent the reported merger of STAR TV and Zee TV as this will result in monopolistic trends and a takeover of cable distribution.

She had alleged that the government had further helped a single group to the disadvantage of others, which was borne out by the permission to Subhash Chandra to operate the global mobile telephone system through his own satellite. She said this group had been allowed to enter into satellite broadcasting, terrestrial telecast, sky teleshopping, cable distribution, programme production, advertising, basic telephony and now satellite communications.

Another operator, Vipin Mehra, said that concentrating the telecasting in a few hands can lead to misuse and pose a threat to national security as well. He expressed surprise that the government had been favouring a group against which several cases of foreign exchange regulation violation, monopoly and crime were pending.

Sharma said that cable operators were being forced to make payment for a minimum of 1,500 subscribers for STAR World even if the actual number of subscribers was much less. This itself was a monopolistic practice, she said, adding that satellite operators should not be permitted to have any stake in terrestrial broadcasting.

Referring to registration of cable operators, she said the post-masters were 'blackmailing' cable operators asking for registeration fee at will.

Strongly condemning cable and video piracy, she said the film industry should take the initiative and invite the cable operators for an open discussion to find ways to curb piracy and stop the 'black sheep' among operators from showing pirated cassettes.

In the memorandum, COFI has said no mergers of Indian companies should be permitted until the broadcasting policies are finalised. The 20 per cent cap on cross-media holding should be strictly enforced.

UNI

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