In August this year, ABN Amro Bank decided to renew the lease for its 3,100 sq ft office space at Nariman Point's Sakhar Bhavan, but the landlord dropped a bomshell by jacking up the rental to Rs 500 per sq ft.
The spectrum tangle has also resulted in the fall of telecom share prices as investor confidence was eroded after the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) decided to permit CDMA (Code division multiple access) players operate GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) services in their existing circles.
For instance, while Digitial Media Convergence -- a part of ESSEL Group (promoter of ZEE TV) -- provides the mobile TV (also known as the fourth screen -- the other three comprising the silver screen, TV and PC) application service 'ISEE' along with telecom service provider BSNL.
The two-film rally by Sony Pictures and Eros International - Saawariya and Om Shanti Om - has set the cash registers ringing. Diwali day usually does not have audience flocking in large numbers, but this Diwali has brought prosperity to multiplex owners with over 85 per cent occupancy on Friday. All leading theatre chains are running to packed houses on Saturday and Sunday.
Poor broadband penetration, high priced set-top boxes and last-mile (to the home) connectivity problems are delaying the telecom industry's much-touted plan of rolling out Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) services.
Om Shanti Om, which will hit theatres on Friday, and others in the pipeline such as Welcome and Race have done it already. Harry Baweja's Love Story 2050 is said to be in talks with jeans brand Killer to introduce a denim clothing line based on the film.
The company recently received permission to launch GSM services within its existing license and is awaiting allocation of spectrum, the radio frequency that enables wireless communications, from the government. CDMA and GSM services cannot be operated on the same spectrum.
Indian cricketer Yuvraj Singh is close to sealing a deal with tennis player Mahesh Bhupathi's sports marketing agency Globosport after his seven-year contract with Percept Talent Management ends in a few weeks. The move could prompt Percept taking Yuvaraj Singh to court because it is believed to have the first right to refusal to match the Globosport offer.
Though in its infancy in India, mobile advertising is emerging as the biggest competitor to Internet advertising. It might even cannibalise online advertising, states a new study by global analysis firm Thomas Weisel International. India's online advertising is expected to reach an inflection point by 2009-end - a time when mobile advertising is predicted to grow at a scorching pace.
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.
Telecom subscribers in the country can now make intra-state call at the rate of a local call, with the state-owned telecom company Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) extending its group-dialing facility to private operators. Group dialing facility enables local dialing within a state by pre-fixing `95' to the receiver's number.
Wannabe telecom operators will take a while to know whether they have passed the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's test. But that hasn't stopped them from taking the next step: tying up with infrastructure providers such as tower operators for rolling out their nation-wide operations.
Call blocking is one facility that telecom service providers claim is only for the chosen few, for instance the celebrities. Not withstanding its niche appeal, service providers in the country are in various stages of implementing the technology.
A user can list certain numbers with the operator from which he does not want to receive calls, and calls from these numbers would be blocked. Around 10-15 numbers can be blocked, while the caller will get a "busy tone or a recorded message".
Companies like state-owned Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited, Tata Teleservices Limited, Reliance Communications and Bharti Airtel are rolling out coin-operated PCOs that will support international calls across the country.
Confirming this, Chief Financial Officer S Venkatesan said that the company has passed an enabling resolution to raise around $200 million from foreign investors either through an FCCB or a private placement.
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.
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