Star wants INCablenet, Hathway truce

Sibabrata Das in Mumbai

STAR is putting pressure on Hathway Cable & Datacom to reach a truce with rival multi system operator (MSO) INCablenet in a bid to increase revenue collections from cable operators. Incidentally, Star has a 26 per cent stake in Hathway.

Rajan Raheja-promoted Hathway and the Hinduja-owned INCablenet met at Star office in Mumbai late last week to discuss how the MSOs can end their fight and come to an agreement on respecting each other’s territories and last mile cable operators.

“Star wants operators to declare an increase in the number of paid subscribers. This can only happen if there is truce between the two major MSOs in Mumbai,” said a senior official in Hathway Cable & Datacom. SitiCable, a subsidiary of Zee Telefilms, was not included in the meeting as it is not a main player in Mumbai anymore.

INCablenet and Hathway subsequently had a meeting with their respective distributors, pressuring them to increase declarations of their subscriber base of paid connectivity by around 25 per cent. Alarmed at being arm twisted, distributors of the two MSOs are planning to have a meeting to press forward their demands.

Distributors of INCablenet have already formed a seven-member committee to put up a proposal to the management before making a commitment on increasing their collections from last mile cable operators. They are meeting on Monday and are expected to demand a prime band allocation to run their own cable channels. They also want to be permitted to run a few channels as a compensation to the 25 per cent increase in connectivity they have to declare at Rs 50 per subscriber.

“We had a meeting with our distributors to work out a common strategy on how to take the company out of the red. We discussed what the future role of distributors should be,” admitted Mr Hingorani.

Hathway also had a similar meeting with its distributors. None of the Hathway officials were, however, willing to comment on the issue. It is reliably learnt that INCablenet and Hathway have already agreed to exchange movies from their libraries to run their cable movie channels, CVO and CCC.

IndusInd Media & Communications executive vice chairman Ram Hingorani confirmed the meeting with Star and Hathway. “We realise that peace in the ground is necessary. We should not poach into each other’s territories.

MSOs will have to reduce competition amongst themselves to realise more revenues from their operators. We have to maintain uniform rate from our franchisees,” he said.

The move towards unity comes at a time when INCablenet wants to centralise its feed through the Barco headend.

Hathway is also feeling pressure from Star to augment revenues from the cable distribution business, even as the interactive digital cable TV project is put on hold.