The Hindu : Another extension for Star News

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 17, 2003

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National

Another extension for Star News

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI JULY 16. For the fourth consecutive time, Star News was given another week to uplink from India as a "foreign broadcaster'' by the Information & Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry after the channel informed the Government about a change in its shareholding pattern.

The decision to give another extension was taken within three hours of the channel informing the Ministry that the advertising professional, Suhel Seth, had picked up industrialist Kumaramangalam Birla's 25 per cent stake in Media Content & Communications Services (MCCS) — the company floated by this wholly foreign-owned entity of the media baron, Rupert Murdoch, to conform to the three-month-old satellite uplinking policy.

With Mr. Seth picking up the 25 per cent stake held by Mr. Birla, the former becomes the largest shareholder in MCCS. Since no new shareholders have been brought aboard MCCS, the I&B officials maintained that a fresh application was not required. "All that Star News needs to do is recast its earlier application to incorporate this change.''

Despite the Ministry seeking an early reply from Star News to the list of queries posed to the channel in a letter dated July 11, the response came in only this afternoon; less than 12 hours before its week's extension was to expire.

Though the Ministry has of late been saying that such extensions cannot be open-ended and substituted for clearance, it decided to allow another week's extension as the channel's responses to its queries were found to be "adequate, if not satisfactory''. Star News first applied for uplinking permission for MCCS on June 20; just six days ahead of the expiry of the 90-day grace period that the channel had to reduce its foreign equity to 26 per cent as mandated by the revised policy.

In today's response, Star News furnished details about the fund flow, its revenue from various sources, and informed the Ministry that Star News Broadcasting Ltd. was the "owner broadcaster'' of the channel. Meanwhile, the Ministry today indicated that the inter-ministerial group (IMG) — to be set up as per last Saturday's decision to review the uplinking policy and plug the loopholes to ensure strict compliance of the foreign equity clause in letter and spirit — would look into the Star News application.

And, one of the key issues that will be looked into by the Ministry and the IMG would be the equity structure of the companies that Star News will be outsourcing from to ensure conformity with the guidelines. These include the Touch Telecontent (India) Pvt. Ltd. for infrastructure support, Hughes Electronics Communications Ltd. for newsgathering and connectivity-related equipment, and Rent Works Ltd.

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