Diwali blockbusters Saawariya and Om Shanti Om may not be screened at a multiplex near you. Leading multiplex chains PVR Cinemas, Inox Lesiure, Cinemax India and Fame, which account for 80 per cent of the country's multiplex screens and half the box office collections, have rejected a demand for a higher revenue share by the films' distributors and have threatened a blackout.
Liquor and airline baron Vijay Mallya, auto major Hero Honda and leading telecom company Reliance Communications have started negotiations with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to buy the rights of teams that will play in the Twenty20 tourney, which was announced to counter Subhash Chandra's Indian Cricket League (ICL).
Sports academies are catching the fancy of astute businessmen. Wizcraft International Entertainment, an event management and entertainment agency, plans to rollout around 8 sports academies with an outlay of nearly Rs 200 crore (Rs 2 billion). The non-sport company will panout the eight academics across eight cities - Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad,Kolkata, Pune, Goa, Chennai - in a phased manner beginning early 2008.
But the second quarter should be better, according to analysts, as the rupee has appreciated by only 1.5 per cent against the dollar sequentially (over the previous quarter) as compared with nearly seven per cent in the first quarter.
The concerns have grown after the ICL decided to postpone its tournaments from October 1 to mid-November this year.
As the Men in Blue flew home to a hero's welcome in Mumbai, advertisers are betting over Rs 250 crore in the next 90 days on cricket TV broadcasts -- a hefty 16 per cent of average advertising spends in the festival season.
Players like Rohit Sharma or Dinesh Karthik who could never command more than Rs 10 to Rs 15 lakh can now hope to hit Rs 30 lakh for new deals. Bowler Sreesanth's endorsement tag has shot up from Rs 25 lakh to Rs 40 lakh.
In return, the BCCI is offering a revenue share from stadium advertising and gate money but not television rights.
Zee TV is fast closing in on general entertainment channel leader Star Plus in terms of viewership.
Raghav Bahl-promoted media company Television Eighteen Group is paying over Rs 340 crore to buy out the rights of films in two of Bollywood's biggest movie deals.
The content providers -- TV channels, FM Radio stations, e-commerce companies and credit card majors -- have blamed the service providers and mobile value-added services (VAS) operators for the problem.
The bidding companies have the choice of either bidding individually or as a group.
The full-fledged residential academy will accommodate the country's top 80 emerging cricketers and be equipped with a health centre, gymnasium and restaurants.
The bidding companies have the choice of either bidding individually or as a group.
If a majority of the countries vote in favour of Microsoft, the world will have to contend with two open-source formats -- ODF and OOXML -- and 'multiple standards are always bad,' according to ODF supporters.
Star cricketers in the ICL will earn more than BCCI cricketers primarily because of the way the contracts are structured.
Integrated media and entertainment company Eros International is planning to set up an animation studio in India.
There will be three other key sponsors, at least one of these is expected to be announced in five days. There may also be seven associate partners.
Warner Brothers plan to make three-four Hindi movies each year and is eyeing producing mid- and big-budget films across genres.
In 2006, Dell recalled 4.1 million notebook computer batteries made by Sony because of overheating and fire risks. It was the largest recall in the company's history.
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