STAR India, a wholly owned subsidiary of STAR Hong Kong, is exploring the possibilities of getting into the print media business in India. Last week, top STAR executives including STAR Hong Kong CEO Paul Aiello, STAR India CEO Uday Shankar and COO Jagdish Kumar were in Bangalore for meetings with possible joint venture partners for the print foray. The company is said to be in talks with Vijay Mallya's UB Group.
OBC parliamentary forum says the 'creamy layer' barrier will hit a large number of OBC students; to meet soon. The definition, many fear, may deny a large number of students the benefit of the OBC quotas in central educational institutions that were given the go-ahead by the Supreme Court last week.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India floated a consultation paper on playing an active role in monitoring the Indian television viewership. TAM Media Research is the sole player in the monitoring market for the last 10 years. TAM's CEO L V Krishnan says govt should start regulating all types of rating outputs like daily newspaper polls done via SMS or even TV polls during elections and not just TV TRPs. TAM is often criticised for its poor sample size, TRP system, etc.
The bad news for newspaper publishers -- and there are over 40,000 newspapers in India -- has just grown worse. The price of newsprint, imported or indigenous, is set to touch $1,000 per tonne, and this after a 23 per cent increase over the previous four months that took prices to $760 a tonne in March. Factor in the April jump and newsprint prices, which typically account for 50 to 60 per cent of production costs, have risen over 60 per cent over the last six months.
International digital marketing company Digitas has partnered with Solutions to enter the digital marketing sector in India. Digitas is owned by global advertising major Publicis Groupe. The new entity will be called Solutions Digitas. Digital marketing was not just online marketing and India is an upcoming market for digital marketing. Digitas will also introduce Prodigious digital production that manages the technology end of digital marketing for clients such as GM & P&G.
Interestingly, the task of finding out how the Chinese economy is faring has been given to the covert agencies. According to top sources in government, the report concludes that the Chinese economy's recent performance suggests more similarities with India than thought of earlier. While China's manufacturing sector comprises 7-40 per cent of GDP, the National Bureau of Statistics, says it is the decline of agricultural production that is a cause for worry.
The fee that TV channels pay to independent cable operators and the multi-system operators is set to go up by 40-50 per cent. The market for carriage fee charged by cable operators to distribute satellite television channels is on fire.A plethora of new TV channels have been launched and are jostling for space on the already choked analogue cable pipe. Nearly 330 channels are chasing bandwidth that can accommodate barely 80 channels.
Sharad Joshi, president of the newly formed Swatantra Bharat Paksha, tells Business Standard that all the Indian farmer wants is a free access to the market.
A country liquor manufacturer is set to launch the Radisson brand in Ranchi.
With 18 advertising deals in its kitty, NDTV Imagine determinedly chases the Rs 300 crore (Rs 3-billion) plus revenue target. In the latest TAM report (4 years plus viewers in cable and satellite homes in the Hindi-speaking markets) the channel shares the number three slot with Sony, ahead of Sahara, Star One, Sab and 9X.
Greycells 18 will launch an interactive channel called Topper to assist students in their class 10 and class 12 board exams.
IPL is all set to auction the players, following the bidding for teams by corporates. Apart from being a huge money churning excercise IPL promises on being entertaining too.
Alliance Lumiere, owned by NDTV Imagine, the entertainment company of NDTV, is all set to launch an international film channel. The films will be distributed in India and abroad. They will also be marketed through DVDs and VCDs for private viewing.
The upcoming Budget will have a record of funds spent on welfare of the minorities.
In spite of the criticism that Bennett, Coleman's Private Treaties division, which swaps advertising space in its newspapers for minor equity in small and medium enterprises, attracts, these print media companies are gearing up to launch their versions of the department.
Samsung, the consumer electronics giant, is adopting new product innovation and retail strategies to reach deeper and wider into the Indian market.
Leading the list of somber leaders is Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who for the second year running has not taken a single day off (except for his prostrate operation). That should have made him popular, but ask the hapless officials at the Prime Minister's Office who have to match his diligent ways.
It seems inevitable, therefore, that the 47-year-old son of an IAS officer, an alumnus of Delhi University's business school and St Stephen's College, should be recognised as the country's most exciting first-generation media entrepreneur, one who is set to challenge more established players. Recognition in the form of Ernst & Young's award for being the best entrepreneur in the services category this year has been the icing on the cake in a year of dramatic action.
When O&M India's executive chairman Ranjan Kapoor appointed creative hot shot Piyush Pandey as his successor in 2004, he wasn't aware that he may be pioneering a trend in advertising where agencies put their creative heads at the helm of their businesses.
US-based NBC Universal is in talks with NDTV to pick up a stake in the latter's UK-based subsidiary, NDTV Networks. The subsidiary operates NDTV Imagine and NDTV Convergence, among others.
