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Offline khurramdar

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Zee Turner makes good on threat
« on: February 14, 2010, 04:17:07 PM »
Zee Turner makes good on threat
Written by Rose Major
Sunday, 14 February 2010 11:28
India’s Zee Turner distribution venture has carried out its threat, removing its channels from the networks of Hathway Cable & Datacomm.

Zee Turner threatened to take the action in a statement last week, saying that the two companies had failed to come to an agreement over a sum of money Hathway owes to Zee Turner. That sum – Rs280 million – is disputed by Hathway.

With the two sides still disagreeing and no carriage deal in place for the last 10 months, screens have gone blank for Hathway subscribers wanting to watch any channel from the Zee Turner bouquet. The 33-channel bouquet includes Zee TV, Zee New, Zee Movies and all Zee’s other services as well as HBO, Cartoon Network, CNN and WB.

There is some confusion over how many subscribers Hathway Cable actually has, with India well known for widespread misreporting of subscriber numbers. The company reports 8.2 million homes (with one million of those digital), at least some of which must be seriously annoyed that their favourite shows have suddenly disappeared.

Meanwhile, Hathway’s IPO ended better than it started, with subscriptions 1.36 times over, although response from retail investors was “muted” according to Reuters. The portion of the offering alloted to institutions was 1.4 times over.

Hathway was aiming to raise over Rs5 billion (US$108 million) for customer acquisitions, set-top boxes, digitisation, loan repayments and other general purposes.

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Offline khurramdar

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Re: Zee Turner makes good on threat
« Reply #1 on: February 14, 2010, 04:19:21 PM »
Zee Turner office attacked in Mumbai

Updated: Sunday, Feb 14, 2010 at 0301 hrs IST

The office of Zee Turner Ltd, a joint venture between Turner International and Essel group, was attacked here, police said.

"We have registered a case of rioting and trespassing against six unidentified persons for damaging and attacking the office of Zee Turner at Vakola in suburban Mumbai," a senior police official said.

"The six gathered in a group outside Zee Turner's office in Vakola last night and attacked the office, causing minor damage to property," the official said.

Meanwhile, Zee Turner, in a statement, said there was an ongoing dispute between them and Hathway Cables over payment defaults.

The company recently had said it may switch off several popular channels across networks of Hathway Cables due to payment defaults.

Zee Turner airs 33 channels in India including Zee TV, Zee Cinema, Cartoon Network, Pogo, HBO, Zee Cafe and Zee Business.

"Hathway has been avoiding signing the agreement for airing these 33 channels despite numerous efforts by Zee Turner and now being overdue by almost 10 months," Zee Turner said.
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Offline khurramdar

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Re: Zee Turner makes good on threat
« Reply #2 on: February 14, 2010, 04:19:43 PM »
Zee Turner to take 33 channels off Hathway


Mumbai: Over eight million viewers in six cities, including Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, won’t have access to their favourite channels as the Zee Turner group has decided to discontinue its bouquet of channels to Hathway Datacomm Limited, one of the largest MSOs in the country.

“It’s sad that we have to take the decision,” said Dinesh Jain, CEO of Zee Turner. “The channels will be switched off in a phase-wise manner from Tuesday. Hathway owes us over Rs28 crores. We are running a business and we won’t be able to give credit to them anymore.”

Thirty-three channels, including Zee TV, Zee Cinema, Cartoon Network, Pogo, HBO, Zee Marathi, Zee Cafe, Zee Studio, Zee Turner, will go off air in New Delhi and Mumbai on Tuesday; in other cities they will be discontinued from Wednesday.

“As per the prescribed law, Hathway has to sign agreements with Zee Turner for digital transmission of the 33 channels on expiry of the previous one. Most of these agreements expired in March 2009 and ever since Hathway has not signed the agreements,” said an official release from Zee Turner.

The release urged the viewers to ask their cable operators to take the channels from other MSOs or choose DTH connections. It also said that consumers can approach governmental authorities like nodal officers in the State and TRAI to share their grievances.
Officials from Hathway said they hadn’t taken any decision on yet. “I can tell you that these things [switching off of channels] keep on happening,” said K Jairaman, CEO.
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