SET has it's hands full with cricket and soaps

With just ten days for the ICC Cricket World Cup to kickstart, it's not only the Indian team that has to pull up its socks, but also the satellite rights holder Sony Entertainment Television.

It sure is a testing time for the media company which has lost its number two position, courtesy a few shows that weren't able to garner sufficient ratings and viewership. Many eyes are now set on the channel and its CEO Kunal Dasgupta.

For Dasgupta, one of the first employees of SET prior to its launch in July 1995, the battleground is familiar. He faced a similar situation just before the 2003 World Cup. Sony had lost its number two position and the channel was losing money heavily.

Dasgupta, however, stunned everybody by paying $250 million - an apparently puny amount now but big money at that time - to bag the satellite rights for telecasting two World Cup tournaments.

The gamble paid off handsomely. Sony re-established itself as the second largest player soon after and grew from a single channel to a bouquet of 14 channels in alliance with Discovery, MTV, NDTV, AXN and Ten Sports.

Dasgupta has also taken Sony and MAX to 62 countries and has been instrumental in acquiring SAB TV and the launch of English movie channel PIX.

Dasgupta also changed the gentleman's game forever by bringing in a whole new way of celebrating cricket: Mandira Bedi was on board and the rest is history. Also to his credit goes "brand extension" programmes like Extraa Innings.

Sony's moment of glory, however, didn't last long, and the channel slipped to the third position again. Music reality shows like Indian Idol did well during its first season in 2004, but wasn't able to attract the eyeballs during its second season the consecutive year.

The reality television mode further weakened Sony's position and none of its shows feature in the top 20 now. For instance, during the period January 22 to January 25, 2007 the only show listed on the 'top unique shows' in the Hindi speaking markets was the reality show Bigg Boss. The show recorded TRPs ranging between 1.62 to 2.15 during the week.

So the time of reckoning has come again. Will cricket help Dasgupta relive those magic moments again? The man himself says, "Nobody makes money from cricket. Whoever buys the rights bleeds, but one has to take that risk to beat competition. What the rights can, for sure, do is to help develop other network channels."

Quite. Coinciding with the World Cup, the flagship Sony channel will re-launch Indian Idol 3 and other new shows, one of which will be produced by Smriti Irani (of Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi fame).

Dasgupta and his team are all smiles as they pad up for yet another chance to hit back at critics. The matches will be telecast live on MAX, while group stage matches will be simultaneously aired on PIX and SAB.

And Mandira Bedi will of course be there, this time in 'cricket theme sarees'.

The buzz is Dasgupta's term is slated to be over in the middle of the year. The jury is still out on whether he is slated for an extra innings.