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Tag: Ram Hingorani

  • IndusInd Media gets a new CEO in Deepak Varma

    IndusInd Media gets a new CEO in Deepak Varma

    MUMBAI: Hinduja TMT subsidiary IndusInd Media & Communications will have a new chief executive officer, even as the company has decided to de-merge its information technology and media businesses.

    Deepak Varma, former chief operating officer of BPL Mobile Communications Mumbai, has joined IndusInd Media as the CEO. Since quitting BPL, Varma has been working with a telecom company abroad.

    General CL Anand will continue as the managing director of IndusInd Media till he is relieved of his duties. “I have expressed my desire to retire from active service due to my growing age and indifferent health,” Anand tells indiantelevision.com.

    Several senior executives of IndusInd Media have quit the organisation over the last two years. These include KV Seshasayee who was heading the conditional access system (CAS) project and was a board member, Rajiv Vyas who was the chief operating officer of IndusInd Media, and Ram Hingorani who was vice chairman of the company. Indus Media had made investments towards CAS, but this amount is stuck as there are still no takers for the addressable system.

    Anand was responsible for improving the health of the MSO and played a big role in improving collections from the ground. The relationship with the distributors also improved during his tenure.

    HTMT plans to have two debt-free listed companies with mirror shareholding. While information technology and telecom businesses will form part of the technology company, media including film content and cable TV distribution and broadband will be part of the new entity. In Fascel, which is a cellular service operator, HTMT has made a financial investment and is planning to sell its stake at the appropriate time.

  • Gen CL Anand made InCable managing director

    Gen CL Anand made InCable managing director

    MUMBAI: IndusInd Media and Communications (IMC) COO General CL Anand has been promoted as the company’s managing director. The decision was taken during a board meeting held on 25 August.

    Meanwhile, IMC vice-chairman Ram Hingorani has left the company. According to a company spokesperson, Hingorani quit the company on 1 September. He has reportedly moved to Reliance Infocomm.

    As has already been reported, HTMT chief technology officer KV Seshasayee has left the Hinduja Group to pursue independent assignments. According to the spokesperson, Seshasayee had put in his papers in July.

  • General Anand elevated to IndusInd CEO

    General Anand elevated to IndusInd CEO

    MUMBAI: There has been a major reorganisation at Hinduja Group MSO INCableNet in its senior management structure.INCableNet technical and services group president major general CL Anand has been elevated to CEO of IndusInd Media & Communications Ltd (IMC).

    General Anand now not only has administrative charge of IMC, which manages INCableNet, but additionally is overall head of the group’s cable Internet arm In2Cable India Ltd. In2Cable CEO Brigadier Shridharan will now be reporting to Anand. Giving Anand overall charge of In2Cable is a prelude to the merging of the cable Internet ISP into IMC which will take place in due course, HTMT group director and CTO KV Seshasayee told indiantelevision.com.

    Seshasayee, meanwhile, who took additional charge of INCableNet after IMC COO Rajiv Vyas quit, returns to the corporate office Hinduja House.

    Another fallout of the executive restructuring at IMC is that Ram Hingorani, non-executive vice-chairman IMC, who has been managing INCableNet’s operations outside of the main four centres (Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad) in addition to his corporate duties at Hinduja House, has been taken off that brief. That is solely under Anand now.

  • LMOs to get shares in pay revenues, say MSOs

    LMOs to get shares in pay revenues, say MSOs

    MUMBAI: Post CAS, the cable trade will don the new mantle of building infrastructure for the convergence era. This is how MSOs and other experts are justifying the huge investments which LMOs (last mile operators) and LCOs (local cable operators) will need to make post July 2003. The cable trade will eventually get a share in pay channel revenues, say most MSOs.

    Speaking at the SCAT 2003 Bombay workshop, InMumbai networks CMD Ram Hingorani urged the LMOs and LCOs to leave the past behind and move away from the old cable system to a new era of building convergence related infrastructure.

    Several LCOs and LMOs in small towns had expressed doubts about investing in infrastructure as they believed that the consumers in those areas wouldn’t even consider taking pay channels and persist with the basic tier channels. This would shut out the alternative revenue streams which everyone is talking about.

    Hingorani also came out in favour of proper declarations, payments of entertainment and service taxes by the cable trade. This could pave the way for a regime with reduced taxation rates, he said.

    Hingorani stated that post-CAS numerous possibilities arose for increasing revenues from the same infrastructure. These new revenue streams included revenue sharing between cable distributors and broadcasters of pay channels, new emerging streams from video-on-demand, pay-per view amongst others.

    Through the IBF (Indian Broadcasting Federation), broadcasters are pushing for a 70:30 ratio between themselves and the MSOs. The MSOs would have to share the 30 per cent with the LCOs and LMOs.

    Hingorani however, states that the revenue sharing ratio would depend on the individual strengths of the channels within a bouquet. For instance a Star Plus would command a premium and perhaps a 70 per cent share. But, the same wouldn’t be true for the weaker channels. Hingorani believes that the weaker channels would require the LCOs and LMOs to sell the channels to the subscribers. 

    On the issue of the distribution of STBs, Hingorani ruled out MSOs providing boxes to consumers free of cost. He stressed that the various constituents must see the investment in STBs from a futuristic and long term perspective.

    The best way was to bring down the landing costs of the box, he said. Towards this end, MSOs have already made presentations to the finance ministry to reduce customs duties on imported STBs from the unrealistically high 54.5 per cent to 10. 5 per cent, he added. 

    He added that the world is heading towards digitization and the Indian cable trade must adopt digital systems. 

    However, other US-based experts present at the seminar warned Indian LCOs that the US had adopted technology fast but hadn’t made much profits because they hadn’t studied the markets well. The key to success would be in terms of efficient packaging and pricing based on the per capita income levels of the consumers.

  • Blackout in Delhi, Mumbai exposes chinks in cable industry front

    Blackout in Delhi, Mumbai exposes chinks in cable industry front

    NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: Even before the champagne bottles could be opened, a chasm seems to have appeared in the cable operators’ fragile unity. After meeting information and broadcasting minister Sushma Swaraj yesterday, a section of the cable trade said that 12-hour blackout of cable TV services which had been planned for today had been called off following the minister’s assurance that Cable TV (Networks) Regulation Act Amendment on CAS will pass through the Rajya Sabha (Upper House).

    However, Delhi and Mumbai and several other cities across the country are currently experiencing a cable blackout starting 9 am. Representatives and franchisees of at least two MSOs staged a dharna at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, with over a 1,000 protestors joining the morcha that followed. The protestors then handed over a memorandum with their demands for quick implementation of CAS to the prime minister as well as the speaker of the Rajya Sabha, it is learnt.

    Across the country, the blackout had varying success though. There was a near total blackout in the Delhi, Patna, Mumbai and Bangalore while viewers in Chennai felt a partial impact. There was however no impact of the stir in Kolkata. 

    Said one of the agitators in the capital, who raised pro-Swaraj and anti-broadcasters slogans: “We are not aware of any decision on calling off the stir slated for July 24. And, more importantly, yesterday’s meeting with the minister did not have proper representation of the whole cable industry.”

    According to InCableNet vice chairman Ram Hingorani, Swaraj is currently meeting with opposition leaders in the Rajya Sabha to try and bring about a consensus on the issue. However, lacking any concrete assurance from their Delhi counterparts, Mumbai cable ops too have resorted to a blackout since this morning to express their solidarity. 

    MSOs whose services are suspended at the moment in Delhi include Hathway (Win Cable) and Siti Cable. In Mumbai, InCable has participated in the blackout, and so have other major MSOs, says Hingorani.

    The division within the ranks and file of cable operators couldn’t have been more apparent. As soon as a section of the cable industry started its dharna at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, press releases went out from the National Cable & Telecom Association (NCTA) that what was happening at Jantar Mantar was unethical. 

    NCTA’s Vikki Choudhry yesterday on Star News had admitted too that being a responsible service provider, the cable fraternity would not blackout TV signals after the assurance from the minister.

    “The cable service providers feel that propriety demands that after the assurance of I&B minister they should not black out the cable TV services when the government has given commitment to pass this Bill in the interest of the consumers. However, the ground cable TV distribution companies such as Hathway (Win Cable), who are joint venture partners of Star, and Siti Cable, which is associated with Zee Network have today gone ahead to hold demonstrations , partial blackout and to raise anti pay channel slogans,” an NCTA release said.

    What does the consumer, in whose name this battle is being fought, feels about such blackouts? Nobody knows because very few have cared to get an average person’s views on this. 

  • Rajiv Vyas in sole charge at INCableNet

    Rajiv Vyas in sole charge at INCableNet

    There has been a major reorganisation at Hinduja Group MSO INCableNet in its senior management structure. INCableNet president Rajiv Vyas now has sole operational charge of INCableNet and has been promoted to COO IndusInd Media & Communications Ltd (IMC). INCableNet is the operations arm of IMC. 

    Out of the equation are the two other power centres in INCableNet  CEO Ram Hingorani and CFO S Vardhan. Both have been transferred to Hinduja House. Hingorani is now vice-chairman IMC in a non-executive capacity (he was executive V-C IMC before the restructuring), while Vardhan has returned to parent company HTMT as executive director. Vardhan has been replaced by Srinivas Pala.

    Talk of internal feuding among these three has long been there in the industry and it may well have been to resolve this that the restructuring was done.