MUMBAI, November 4: So Jaipal Reddy finally managed to pull through the amendments to the Prasar Bharati Act through an ordinance. This when everyone was berating him for his tardiness. Whether the amendments will ensure that governments do not meddle editorially with the broadcasters (DD and AIR), ensuring total autonomy, is, however, doubtful. Old habits die hard, after all.

Remote control handling of the two broadcasters by politicians will continue. Unless DD is structurally changed and the old staff who have been used to a particular mindset (like taking orders from political bosses), work ethos and environment are re-trained or replaced with more market-savvy and entrepreneurial professionals, the Prasar Bharati Act will have a limited beneficial impact on the broadcaster.

What is welcome is the amendment allowing doordarshan to decide the amount of time it can give out to advertisers. Doordarshan air-time marketers will have to draw up innovative packages to exploit the penetration advantage that the public broadcaster has over private cable & satellite channels. It has failed to do enough so far. If it gains more market savvy, the broadcaster can put paid to the hopes of many a channel.

Let's wait and see how the DD drama unfolds. For once, all media professionals' eyes are on November 17 and 18 when the joint parliamentary committee is slated to meet and hone in on the final set of recommendations for the Broadcasting Act. After all, Reddy has to live up to his promise of having a more complete Broadcasting Act in place by December this year. The buzz in the industry is that if the reworked Act is not friendly enough for foreign broadcasters, it will result in a lot of litigation with Star TV at the forefront in making appeals to the various courts.

MindShare may be set up after a year

Speculation was that India would be one of the countries where the WPP group agencies JWT and O&M would launch their joint venture media outfit MindShare. It has proved to be speculation. MindShare was launched on November 1 in Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Singapore and Thailand. India was given the miss because the two agencies' Indian heads didn't want it. Even the fact that a joint media company would bring with it great benefits to the two in terms of media clout and research and planning tools was ignored. However, the buzz is that there will be a MindShare in India but it will be set up at a later stage, maybe a year or so down the line.

Zee claims Music Asia is the leader

With Channel V and MTV hogging a share of the limelight can Subhash Chandra's Indian music network, Music Asia, be far behind? Obviously not. The management claims that the channel has beaten MTV and Star TV's Channel [V] into Indian homes. Chandra claims his channel, which has transmitted off PanAmSat-4 since July, reaches 10 million cable and satellite households, and has a higher viewership share than rival music networks. Market research firm ORG-Marg viewership data shows that Music Asia notched up 53 per cent gross rating points during prime time as against 29 per cent for Channel [V] and 18 per cent for MTV.

Data from TV monitoring agency IMRB shows that Music Asia has a 47 per cent prime time share, while Channel [V] has 45 per cent. MTV is trailing with 8 per cent. Obviously it won't be surprising if both Channel [V] and MTV come up with reworked figures which will show that both of them are actually the leaders and not Music Asia as it is claiming.

The Diwali boom

While Diwali was tough on white goods and brown goods manufacturers with sales falling short of expectations, it was a good season for TV channels. According to industry sources, the top three private satellite TV channels --Zee TV, Sony and Star Plus were chock-a-block with advertising. DD fared even better.

"We are booked right through November for Star Plus," says Star TV vice-president Yash Khanna. Khanna estimates that the billings for Star Plus during Diwali more than doubled last year's figures. (The channel's programmes are commanding half the rate that Zee TV charges for commercials). "This augurs well for Star Plus," says a media professional. Programmes like Star News and Tu Tu Main Main are gaining acceptance among viewers. Star Plus is like the long-distance runner who runs at a trot but sprints in the final few yards to emerge a winner."