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Star's broadband, interactive plans put on hold

Fakir Chand in Bangalore

Star India Ltd, the wholly-owned subsidiary of media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, has put on hold its ambitious plans to offer broadband and interactive services for the time being.

Disclosing this in Bangalore on Tuesday, Star India CEO Peter Mukerjea told Rediff.com that global downturn in the media and entertainment industry had put paid to their efforts to launch a slew of Internet services like streaming music and webcasting entertainment programs.

"Star India plans are very much in place. Because of the knock the industry had taken over the last few quarters the world over, we have put on hold (the plans) for the time being. As and when there is a turn around, we will launch our bouquet of services," Mukerjea claimed on the sidelines of the launching of the first private FM radio station to which Star will be providing the content for music and entertainment.

Stating that the India subsidiary was on the way to break-even during the current fiscal year (2001-02) and post profits, Mukerjea said the company was restructuring the various channels and services being offered to consolidate its leadership in the satellite and cable television industry.

"We are restructuring our leading channels like Star Plus, Star Movies and Star News to be more focused on the sub-continent and offer India-specific programs for warding off competition from other leading satellite TV channels like Zee and Sony," Mukerjea affirmed.

Admitting that Zee News and Aaj Tak had a competitive edge over Star in telecast of Hindi news, Mukerjea said the channel was working out new plans to provide better and exclusive content in the national language. "We are talking to NDTV Productions to revamp the content provision for Hindi though we are ahead in the English section," he added.

Asked whether the contract with NDTV for providing news and current affairs would continue after its expiry next year, as its chief (Prannoy Roy) was planning to launch his own independent satellite channel to provide news, views, and entertainment, Mukerjea said the issue had not yet been taken up. "We will cross the bridge when we reach it. We will discuss the matter with NDTV on the present arrangement. We haven't heard much about the launch of his own TV channel network," he added.

It may be recalled that the Hong Kong-based News Corporation had announced amid fanfare at the Global Investors' Meet, held last July in Bangalore, that it would set up a multi-million dollar digital studio to outsource software products and services for its global media entertainment networks at an estimated cost of $225 million.

Work on the studio was scheduled to have begun late last year at a strategic location on the Bangalore-Bombay highway (NH4), but nothing was heard of it since then.

On a flying visit to Bangalore around that time, Murdoch had assured Karnataka's IT-savvy chief minister S M Krishna of locating the hi-tech studio in the state's capital on account of its global reputation for being a nerve centre for IT and knowledge management.

Besides broadband and interactive services, the News Television Networks of Star was also to launch a news portal from Bangalore, but could not take off in the wake of the dotcom bust and the present tech meltdown.

Even the much-promised subsequent investments by Murdoch in two other portals such as ITSpace.com and Indya.com, launched by Pradip Kar of the Bangalore-based Microland group, did not see the light of the day.

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