Zee and Star discontinue the distribution of their channels through the joint venture Media Pro

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has banned bundling of channels from more than one broadcaster by channel aggregators through its regulation namely, Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable) Service (Fourth) (Addressable System) Tariff (Third Amendment) Order 2014.The first and the biggest impact of this regulation already visible now within two months of its notification. Star Den and Zee Turner on 11th April have decided to split their three years   old distribution joint venture Media Pro Enterprises that was created just before Digitalisation came into force.

Star India CEO Uday Shankar said,”Media Pro has been a truly delightful and path breaking partnership. Punit and I created Media Pro with the objecting of accelerating digitisation, promoting transparency and introducing best practices in distribution. Thanks to the commitment of both parties the JV has delivered exceptionally well on each of these. I am proud to say that Media Pro has led the industry consensus for most efficient way of moving to a digital domain. This in turn allowed us to offer better content to our viewers. In the light of new regulation, both partners have decided to build independent affiliate sales team. I take this opportunity to complement the entire MediaPro team led by Arun Kapoor for creating a best-in-class organisation that helped pioneer digital transformation of cable”.

Punit Goenka, Managing Director and CEO of Zee Entertainments Ltd said that, we had created this joint ventures to address various anomalies in the analogue market, curb piracy and introduce transparency for the benefit of all stakeholders. I must say that we have been very satisfied with the outcome of the partnership. In the last three years, with DAS getting implemented, India is truly on the path to digitisation. First two phases of DAS have already been implemented. Given the new regulation, Uday and I have taken a call to continue the business at independent level.            

However, the industry experts and independents MSOs and LCOs say, that creation of MediaPro brought maximum harm to the digitiation process by creating market monopoly in distribution sector on behalf of pay channels of these large media groups. Even litigations increased to a great extent after creation of Media Pro as with 79 pay TV channels the company was literally forcing independent operators    out of the market creating unreasonable conditions for them. Except helping the MSOs like WWIL and Den in creating huge monopolies in DAS area the aggregators have achieved nothing for the industry. TRAI had to issue this notification to curb such monopolistic activities.

Source: http://cablequest.org/news/cable-news/item/4596-zee-and-star-discontinue-the-distribution-of-their-channels-through-the-joint-venture-media-pro.html
Source: http://cablequest.org/news/cable-news/item/4596-zee-and-star-discontinue-the-distribution-of-their-channels-through-the-joint-venture-media-pro.html