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Murdoch gains foothold in India

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI MARCH 31. The media baron Rupert Murdoch has finally secured his own foothold in the business of news and current affairs in India with the launch of the new-look `Star News' midnight on Sunday night.

Though television news in the country is poised for yet another battle — a crowded one at that with a good half-a-dozen news channels set to enter an arena already occupied by 47 news channels — India has joined the league of nations where media-related laws have been rewritten by the seemingly ``unstoppable'' News Corporation of Mr. Murdoch.

The Information and Broadcasting Ministry may claim that the new uplinking policy is ``channel-neutral'', but there can be no denying that it was the wholly foreign-owned Star News' application to run a 24-hour news channel which forced a revision in the existing regime.

While the policy was changed to the disadvantage of Star News — as the new regime puts a 26 per cent cap on foreign equity in news channels seeking to uplink from India — intervention from the highest echelons of power facilitated the smooth ``rollover'' for Murdoch & Co. following the termination of its contract with NDTV; Star's Indian face till a day ago.

In the process, Star News has had a headstart among the new channels with NDTV scheduled to launch its Hindi and English channels mid-April and `TV Today' only unveiling the name and logo of its English channel today on its flagship channel Aaj Tak.

The new channels apart, India has 47 networks dealing in news — 16 of them 24-hour.

That News Corporation should have managed to pull down the newly-imposed protective barrier is no surprise; certainly, not after managing to get into China.

If there is any irony in it at all, it is that the BJP — which had kicked up a row in 1996 when Mr. Murdoch had sought uplinking facilities from India for his network — should have facilitated Star's entry into round-the-clock news after tightening the policy; purportedly to give Indian television news companies an edge in this highly competitive business.

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