Pritish Nandy

Pritish Nandy Communication

Financial Express

Wednesday, August 23, 2000

Pritish Nandy bags DD's Olympics rights for Rs 15 cr

Mumbai, Aug 22: Pritish Nandy Communications has bagged the Olympic 2000 marketing rights from Doordarshan at a whopping Rs 15 crore. This is Rs 4 crore higher than DD's acquisition cost of Rs 11 crore from Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union for exclusively telecasting the sporting event in the country. Doordarshan is making all efforts to go pay before the Olympics which starts on September 15, Prasar Bharati chief executive officer RR Shah told The Financial Express. "We need to distribute 4,000-5,000 decoders across the country. We also have to sign MoUs with cable operators. The process is on. We hope to end it before the Olympics and are working towards that deadline. But if that does not happen, DD Sports will go pay only after the Olympics," he said.

DD Sports will be priced at Rs 5.9o per subscriber. Modi Entertainment Network, which is appointed as the distribution agent, has agreed on a minimum guaranteed connectivity of 5 million homes in the first year.

DD Sports is positioned as a premium broadcast channel and will telecast all live events, Shah said, adding that it will have uninterrupted viewing. DD National Network will have highlights and recorded events while DD Metro will show events a day later.

While DD National Network will telecast mass-watched events like hockey, football, boxing and badminton, DD Metro will focus on niche events like beach volleyball, shooting, archery, fencing, rowing and equestrian. "The positioning of the two channels are different. While DD has mass audience, DD Metro has a more urban-centric image," a senior official in Pritish Nandy Communications said.

DD National will telecast from 4-7 pm and 11.30 pm-6 am. "We will be able to air live a few events on the channel which happen between 4-5.30 pm. We will not be telecasting the Olympics on the channel in prime time," Shah said.DD Metro will telecast the sporting event in the night and early parts of the day. DD Sports, which is a satellite channel, will try to derive the maximum penetration from this strong event.

Some analysts say DD got a hefty price for the event and Pritish Nandy Communications may have over-pitched. "The company may have bid too high," an analyst said. However, there is no strong sporting event in the other two sports channels, ESPN and Star Sports, during that time.

Nimbus Communications, which has bagged the rights for the ICC Cricket World Cup, did not bid. "We are having the ICC mini World Cup in October. Besides, we find the Olympics not as hot a property in the country as cricket, football and lately tennis," said Harish Thawani, head of Nimbus Communications. Nimbus had handled two Olympics events in the past.

Doordarshan has exclusive telecast rights, terrestrial and satellite, to the mega sporting event and will be bringing in six live feeds round the clock.

Pritish Nandy Communications has created a sportal, Olympicsonline.com, to market the event. The sportal will provide information on the Olympics over the years and update latest information on the ongoing games on a minute-to-minute basis.

Business Line

Friday, September 01, 2000

Management recast plan -- Pritish Nandy Comm hires KPMG

PRITISH Nandy Communications Ltd (PNCL) has hired KPMG for drawing up a management restructuring plan. It will also audit the valuation of PNCL's brand and current content library of 448 hours. An independent valuer has appraised the two assets at Rs. 120 crores and Rs. 40 crores respectively.

Mr. Pritish Nandy, Chairman, told newspersons here on Thursday that the exercises on honing the management structure and getting the seal of approval on intellectual property rights valuation by a globally-noted consultant/auditor were part of the preparatory steps for the second growth phase of PNCL.

``We are already a leading television content provider in the domestic market. In the next phase, PNCL intends to slot itself as the content provider for channels supported by the Indian diaspora and finally, the mainstream overseas media,'' he said.

He said since the production cost in India was significantly lower than that in the US, the UK or other European countries, more and more overseas producers and channels were turning towards India for software. Global sponsor companies were also showing preference for Indian professional content providers for quality production.

According to a recent Arthur Anderson report, the size of the Indian TV content providing business is likely to be around Rs. 60 crores by 2005, he pointed out.

KPMG would outline PNCL's growth plan not only as a TV content provider but also in the areas of events and image management and film marketing through digital convergence platforms, including the Internet and WAP-enabled mobile telephones.

PNCL was planning to acquire a few domestic production units and was negotiating with Ismail Merchant for marketing its productions, said Mr. Nandy, who was here for PNCL's roadshow for its IPO.

August 29, 2000

Showbiz.com to trade Indian content

Pritish Nandy Communications (PNC) Limited has developed an entertainment portal (Showbiz.Com) that would showcase the Indian contents and programs for international buyers to buy or trade online.

Similarly, it has created an auction site for Indian arts where art works could be traded like commercial papers to fetch premium on pricing. Besides, PNC as a leading content provider, will venture into production of feature films for television channels and creation of events for telecasting and broadcasting media.

According to Pritish Nandy, the company would be raising about Rs 40 crores through public offering of its shares to part finance the expansion program which involved strategic acquisitions in future.

Top / Back

IPO Home / Karvy Home