IIPM

Even in the case of Direct-to-Home (DTH) service, Zee’s Dish TV has the early bird advantage in the race. Currently, the network claims a huge sub-scriber base for its DTH services, sitting pretty at 1.3 million subscribers. In contrast, their main rival Sky TV (jointly promoted by the Tata Group and Star Network), which was slated to be launched in July this year, has been caught in a controversy over content sharing with Zee and is now expected to be launched in August 2006. Snaps Jawahar Goel, Vice Chairman, Zee Telefi lms Limited, “According to the TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) guidelines, if a DTH player is a broadcaster, it has to share content with the competitors, but Star does not respect the laws of the land.” Moreover, Zee has also got Sony’s bouquet of channels on board. Zee has also emerged as the largest cable operator (Siti Cable) in India with an estimated reach of a creditable 6.5 million homes. Now that it is poised to utilise the potential of the television space, Zee is on a new journey. It has entered into the inimitable print media with investments of a whopping Rs.1 billion in the Mumbai daily Daily News & Analysis in the year 2005 in partnership with the Dainik Bhaskar Group. This clearly is a step towards being in all segments.

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Source: (Business& Economy), IIPM; Editor: Arindam Chaudhuri