Murdoch’s Star rising in India’s regional TV market(NSI News Source Info) November 15, 2008: Rupert Murdoch’s Star television moved towards becoming a leading broadcaster across India by tapping into the fast-growing local language TV stations in the south.
News Corp’s Asian television group announced a joint venture with Jupiter Entertainment, a media group founded by Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the Indian telecoms entrepreneur.
The venture will pool channels broadcasting in Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam languages with Vijay, Star’s small Tamil entertainment channel.
“This is a game-changing partnership for Star,” said Paul Aiello, chief executive. Despite reaching 60m viewers with its Hindi and English programming, he added, “frankly, we’d not taken advantage of the opportunity provided by the regionalisation of viewership and advertising”.
Advertising revenues for regional language broadcasters are forecast to increase by 20 per cent a year for the next five to seven years, Mr Aiello said, compared with a growth rate of about 12-14 per cent for other broadcasters.
Mr Murdoch, who acquired control of Star more than a decade ago, has highlighted India as one of the main areas of focus for News Corp as a darker outlook for advertising and consumer spending in the US and Europe prompted a rapid cut to the company’s profit forecasts this month.
James Murdoch, chief executive of News Corp Europe and Asia, told the Monaco Media Forum on Thursday that India would not be immune to economic pressures, and predicted that at least one rival in the highly competitive Indian market could “capitulate”.
However, he said India would be a core market for News Corp, which intended to keep investing in local language broadcasting.
Between 50 and 80 per cent of TV viewing in the four southern regions – Kerala, Karnataka, Andra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu – is in local languages, presenting a challenge to advertisers seeking a national audience.
“The fastest growth in cable and satellite broadcasting is coming from southern India,” said Uday Shankar, chief executive of Star India.
Star would be able to adapt its Hindi programming for the region, he said.
Mr Aiello would not disclose the financial terms of the joint venture, but said Star and Jupiter would make “additional investments” to launch new channels in southern India.
The two companies had also begun looking at possible co-operation in film production, he added.
In the past year, Star has launched general entertainment channels in Marathi and Bengali, while expanding its Bollywood film activities.
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