The Rediffusion-DY&R board has rejected the proposal of WPP-owned Mediaedge:cia to buy out Rediffusion’s media business, The Media Edge (TME). Low valuation combined with the ongoing battle between WPP and Rediffusion over the future of their relationship are said to the reasons for the rejection of the offer by the majority shareholders, Arun Nanda and Ajit Balakrishnan. Sources said WPP wants to buy TME by splitting it from Rediffusion-DY&R’s advertising business. Its aim is to consolidate the media planning and buying businesses in the country under the independent umbrella brand of Group M. Rediff and the WPP group-owned Y&R are locked in a bitter battle over WPP’s attempt to buy additional 6% stake in the agency from Dentsu as per a global agreement. Also, the Rediff board wants to push for an IPO, which WPP is strongly opposing. The board will now meet on April 21 to decide on the issue. Source: The Economic Times, Mar.19, 2004

 O&M (Ogilvy & Mather) got the Agency of the Year title, while Lowe stayed away from the 37th All India Awards for Creative Excellence of the Advertising Club of Bombay (the Abby awards). O&M also won the campaign of the year award for its client Hutch and the best continuing campaign award for its work on Fevicol. This year the Advertising Club decided to award 15 gold Abbys and the O&M creative gurus bagged six of them. Among these were the Kathakali commercial for Eno in the toiletries and household category and the rest comprised the creative work done for the Hutch commercials in the products and services category. The rest of the gold awards were shared by agencies such as McCann Erickson (paanch film for coca cola in the beverages and tobacco category and for Sweetex in the outdoor category), Enterprise Nexus (Times of India in the media category), Saatchi & Saatchi (Bharat Pertroleum in the Outdoor Category), SSC&B (Axe deodorant in the toiletries and household care category), Leo Burnett (Senso Restaurant in the household category and for Darna Mana Hai in the new interactive media category) and Yahoo! Web Service (Pepsi Blue in the new media interactive category). Source: The Hindu Business Line, Mar.22, 2004

AC Nielsen ORG MARG, the country's largest market research firm is revamping its operations, overhauling its market research methodology and expanding the coverage of modern retail formats, apart from covering more towns and cities for its retail audit. It is also looking at the option of introducing wholesale audits (which will take into account wholesalers selling to the end-consumer directly). So clients will have to shell out more for this value-added service. Source: Business Standard, Mar.24, 2004

 Television

News broadcaster NDTV India will launch a Rs-100-crore ($22 million) initial public offering (IPO) and has filed a draft prospectus with the market regulator—Securities and Exchange Board of India. “It will be a book-built issue,” said a banker, adding that the pricing and number of shares on offer would be decided later. NDTV India operates a Hindi and an English news channel and will be the second TV news channel to raise money through IPO in the past three months. In December, TV Today Network Ltd garnered Rs 138 crore by selling 14.5 million shares, or 25 per cent of its enlarged equity. The issue was oversubscribed more than 35 times. Source: The Indian Express, Mar.19, 2004

Star India plans to launch direct-to-home services with 65 channels on its platform for a monthly subscription of Rs 180 from November. The Rs 180 subscription fee proposed for Star's DTH service is cheaper than not only the existing DTH offering from the Zee stable but also ordinary cable services. Michelle Guthrie told the I&B minister that the existing entertainment channel Star Plus was raking in revenues. However, It was difficult to bring in new flavours unless the ongoing soaps were removed. So the company had decided to start two more new channels in the entertainment segment. Star-Tata DTH platform will add on content on lifestyle, cookery, gardening it was revealed. The Company (which planned to link through PAS) is still trying to sort out the issue with ISRO as the norms demand that the link should be through an Indian satellite. Source: The Economic Times, Mar.20, 2004

 “In other markets, we were hit by a global recession and uncertainty over SARS. But in India, we have seen significant growth,” said BBC World director of airtime sales Jonathan Howlett. The aim of BBC is to offer an alternative and not be influenced by local market pressures, he said. The consolidation of cable TV companies like Comcast will make it tough for pay-TV broadcasters, but BBC has an advertising-led revenue stream in most markets, he said .The international news channel has been aided by the growth of certain sectors like automobiles and financial products in India. Wheels, the Indian motoring show, is part of BBC World’s dedicated programming strip at 10 PM to attract local audiences. Source: The Financial Express, Mar.23, 2004

 Zee Telefilms Ltd (ZTL) has sought approval from the government for issuing $ 100 million worth of foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCB) to non-resident investors, citing the plea that the “issue of news and raising of funds may please be delinked”. The company, which has been allowed one year, ending this month, to bring down foreign stake to the 26% limit, has already sought government’s nod for transferring all news business to another group company Zee Sports Ltd, in which the shareholding is by resident Indians. Source: The Economic Times, Mar.23, 2004

 The I&B Ministry has received over a dozen applications from various news channels available in India. And among them are ones from CNBC-TV 18, TV Today's Aaj Tak and Headlines Today, New Delhi Television (NDTV), Asianet News, Independent Television, Sri Adhikari Brothers Television, MAA TV, Raj TV, Broadcast Worldwide and a whole bunch of channels from Sahara Media. Officials in the Ministry said, "By March 26, all channels with news and current affairs content in them must adhere to the uplinking norms announced last year. Even if the channels do not have foreign investment, they must submit documents proving their compliance. We will examine each application closely and see that they conform to the norms." According to data available with the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), the total foreign equity in Zee Telefilms is 63.86 per cent with FIIs holding about 39.19 per cent, while the total foreign investments in TV 18 is 19.98 per cent with FIIs having 10.76 per cent share. Source: The Hindu Business Line, Mar.23, 2004

 Space TV, the direct-to-home (DTH) television joint venture between the Tata group and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, is likely to divest up to 29 per cent equity in the company to foreign institutional investors (FIIs) in due course. The equity will be diluted by the Tata group, whose holding in the company will come down to 51 per cent from the present 80 per cent. News Corp’s investment in Space TV will be through the company’s wholly owned Dubai-based subsidiary, Network Digital Distribution Services, which plans to acquire the holding in Space TV in two tranches. Of the total projected cost of around Rs 1,600 crore for the DTH venture, the initial foreign equity investment by Network Digital is estimated to be around Rs 201.45 crore. Source: Business Standard, Mar.24, 2004

Print Media

According to the latest round of the Indian Readership Survey, The Times of India moves up the rankings, garnering 72 lakh readers, up from 61 lakh last year. That makes it the largest English publication in terms of readership, magazines included. It also includes being the only English publication on the list of the Top 10 publications (all languages, urban and rural), with 72,35,000 readers, moving to the ninth spot from last ten years. Economic Times on the other hand, is the only business daily to make it to the list of the top English newspapers (urban and rural) with a readership of well over a million. The Times of India continues to dominate the list of English language publications with the nearest competitor, India Today having a readership of 41,88,000.Hindustan Times, lagging even further behind at the third spot, has a readership of 29,47,000. The list is headed by the Dainik Jagaran with 1,57,22,000 readers. Source: The Economic Times, Mar.23, 2004

Among all the urban English newspapers, Economic Times is ranked at the Number four. Significantly, in Mumbai and Delhi, where the paper enjoys the readership of 2,64,000 and 1,71,000 respectively, almost the readers belong to the SEC A&B categories, making it to the most effective publication to reach out to a premium target audience. Filmfare, from the Times Group stable as well, is also the country’s top 10 English publications, in sixth spot with 25,42,000 readers, and is the third highest read English magazine. In other findings, it’s noted that across the country, the consumption of terrestrial TV remains the highest at 51% with cable & satellite TV and print following close behind at 24%and 23%. Source: The Economic Times, Mar.23, 2004

Internet & New Media

The Tata-owned Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL) has acquired the narrow and broadband businesses of Dishnet DSL for Rs 270 crore. The transaction will comprise acquisition of internal assets, employees and customers of Dishnet’s ISP business. VSNL has a subscriber base of over 6.29 lakh dial-up subscribers. The acquisition immediately catapults VSNL to the number two spot in terms of subscriber base, with a total figure of 8.05 lakh subscribers. VSNL currently has 15.2 per cent of the market, and the acquisition will increase that figure to 19.45 per cent. Source: The Indian Express, Mar.19, 2004

Marcel Fenez, Asia Pacific Leader, Entertainment & Media Practice, PwC, said that an explosion of digital technology and an increased broadband rollout would be among key drivers of the global entertainment industry. Globally, the broadband universe will expand from 42 million households in 2002 to 400 million households by 2007. In Asia Pacific, broadband households are expected to increase to 169 million households in 2008 from the current level of 13.5 million households. Source: The Hindu Business Line, Mar.23, 2004

Films & Cinema

While delivering inaugural address at the FICCI Frames 2004 convention I&B minister Ravi Shankar Prasad called for lowering of entertainment tax with a 45 per cent ceiling and making India the hub of world film industry. “In some of the states, the tax hovers at around 25-35 per cent, while in certain other places it is over 55 per cent,” Mr Prasad said, adding uniformity was the “need of the hour.” He also said that the government intends to make India the destination of filmmaking in the world by liberalising policies to enabling shooting of foreign films in the country. The minister called for venture capital funding in film production and said a committee would be mooted to look into this. Source: The Financial Express, Mar.16, 2004