Siti Cable has not signed any deal in Delhi and IN Cablenet franchisees in Mumbai have said that the enhanced rates are not acceptable to them. The networks, strong in these two cities, are negotiating with the sports channel.

"We are talking to IN Cablenet in Mumbai," admitted RK Singh, chief executive officer, ESPN Software India Pvt Ltd.

Being the largest multiple system operator (MSO) in Mumbai with 1 million subscribers, IN Cablenet wants to get the best possible deal. "As they have not switched off the decoders, there is clear indication that they are open to negotiations," a company source said.

Siti Cable's franchisees in Mumbai, however, have started entering into individual agreements with STAR Sports. Already, seven out of the 13 Siti Cable head-ends inMumbai have signed up with the sports channel. The network has asked its resident directors to take independent decisions, based on local feedback from their franchisees.

When STAR Sports raised its subscription fee on March 17, Siti Cable wanted to strike a central deal but the sports channel preferred to enter into individual contracts. The network recently took a corporate decision to empower its resident directors to take decisions on a regional basis. "We authorised our resident directors to take feedback from their franchisees and decide on a local level. The sports channel did not want to have a corporate deal with us probably because they wanted to dictate over the increase in price and subscription connections," Siti Cable executive director Hari K Goenka told The Financial Express.

According to latest figures, around 5,000 cable systems including some major ones like RPG and Asianet have signed up to receive STAR Sports. The network reaches out to 8,000 operators. In Mumbai, 115 out of140 cable systems have signed up. "We have a deal going. Others are in the process of signing," said Singh.

Clearly, cable operators are divided over the issue. While Siti Cable has signed up in Mumbai, IN Cablenet is in the process of negotiation. The reverse is the case in Delhi.

Cable operators have complained that ESPN and STAR Sports are flexing their muscles before the 1999 Cricket World Cup. They have threatened to boycott ESPN and STAR Sports in the 11 Indian matches that Doordarshan would telecast. But DD has the terrestrial and not the satellite rights.

"The World Cup is too strong an event which we can't afford to drop. But we want to express our resentment against the two sports channels who are acting as a monopoly by hiking rates before a big sporting event," a cable operator said.

Singh said such allegations were baseless. "We do not revise our rates for ESPN and STAR Sports before major events. It has always been an annual hike and not done arbitrarily," he said. STAR Sports, whichwent pay in March 1998, raised the rates from Rs 3.30 to Rs 4.99 per subscriber exactly after a year. ESPN, which went pay on May 1996, had its first price hike in September 1997 (from Rs 3 to Rs 5.70 per subscriber). The second hike, to Rs 7, came after a year.

"We are not going to revise the subscription price for ESPN before September," Singh said.

The annual hike was inevitable as programming and acquisition costs had gone up, Singh added.