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MEDIA
OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL
I. India: Star TV
transfers shares to Zee TV.
In India the stage is set for a keen battle for
dominating the country’s airwaves after the parting
of ways between Rupert Murdoch-owned Star TV and
India’s first and biggest private satellite
broadcaster, Asia Today Ltd, which owns the Zee-cable
television channels. The annual journal meeting of Zee
shareholders being held in Bombay on Monday [27th
September] is expected to approve the biggest media deal
in Indian corporate history in which Star TV would be
paid nearly 300m dollars for transferring its stake to
the Indian company. Sanjiv Srivastava reports from
Bombay.
[Srivastava]
At first glance the deal looks like a triumph for
Zee telefirms. The first Indian media company on the
threshold of entering the billion dollar club. One reason
why the deal is being seen as having benefited the Zee TV
is that in nearly all joint ventures involving a foreign
partner until now it was the Indian partner who was
bought out. The opposite has happened in this case and
many analysts here have chosen to describe it as a
victory for the Indian company.
Zee’s
programming was already being beamed to the South Asian
population across the world. No longer encumbered by a
tie-up with the Star TV it can now also launch its sports
and English language channels. The company’s also
looking for a strategic tie up with international media
companies like Time Warner and Viacom both to pay off the
Star TV and realize its ambition of becoming an
international media player. Some analysts however see the
deal as a master stroke by Rupert Murdoch who by selling
off his stake at 300m dollars can now claim to recoup all
the losses he has so far incurred on his Indian
operations. The break-up also opens the possibility of
increased advertising revenue for Star TV through more
Indian language programming, not allowed under an
agreement with Zee TV so far. (BBC World Service, London,
27 September 1999)
II. Botswana: New
station Yarona FM in danger of S African takeover.
Botswana’s newly-established radio station
Yarona FM is reportedly in danger of being taken over in
a hostile bid by its South African minority partner,
Union Alliance Media.
Botswana
shareholders, Copacabana, have a 51 per cent controlling
interest while Union Alliance Media has a 49 per cent
shareholding in Yarona.
According
to a report by the ‘Botswana Gazette’, the
battle over ownership reached a peak last week during a
shareholder’s meeting when UAM threatened to apply
for the dilution if Copacabana does not inject more
capital into the station. The dilution would mean control
of Yarona going to the South African partner.
Yarona
started broadcasting last month as Botswana’s first
privately-owned radio station. (Radio Botswana, Gaborone,
22 September 1999)
III. Bulgaria:
Privatization of public TV Efir 2 said to be in trouble.
The competitive bidding for the right to broadcast
television programmes within a nationwide range is on the
brink of failure, writes ‘Trud’.
The
National Council for Radio and Television (NCRT) cannot
invite bids for a licence before the State
Telecommunications Commission (STC) provides it with a
map of the unallocated radio frequency spectrum,
‘Trud’ says, quoting NCRT member Svetlana
Bozhilova.
The
STC reacted that they have not promised such a map to the
NCRT and will not give it soon because it was too
complicated to prepare.
“This
register has not been disclosed so far and experts say
that this concerns to a certain extent the transparency
of the licensing procedure,” writes ‘Bulgarska
Armiya’. “The private media licensing is
postponed for after the sale of the [Bulgarian]
telecommunications company,” ‘Standard
News’ reports. “Nobody is bidding for Efir 2
[second public TV channel],” says ‘Sega’.
‘Duma’ notes that the bidders for Efir 2 will
attend a public discussion. Commenting on the issue,
‘Trud’ writes that two institutions of state
are supposed to speak Bulgarian but cannot understand
each other, as a result of which Bulgaria will long stay
without a national private television. (BTA news agency,
Sofia, 28 September 1999)
IV. Latin American
press too close to power, ombudsman says.
The media in many Latin American countries are too
close to power and too far from the truth, the head of a
regional group of ombudsmen said Wednesday. “In some
of our countries, journalism is now closer to power than
it is to the truth,” said Leo Valladares, President
of the Iberoamerican Federation of Ombudsmen. Speaking to
reporters at the end of the fourth annual congress of the
federation in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa,
Valladares accused newspapers, television networks and
radio stations of cozy relations with entrenched interest
groups. “This disturbs the system and can severely
harm the defense of individual rights,” he said.
Valladares, who is also the National Commissioner for
Human Rights in Honduras, did not name names. Some Latin
American countries have in the past two decades broken
with military dictatorships that once firmly muzzled the
media. Often, the result has been increasing freedom of
information and more investigative, and critical
journalism. In some countries, however, the media is
largely owned by powerful businessmen with close ties to
governments. In others, such as in Peru and Panama,
governments have in recent years passed libel and other
laws which press freedom groups have blasted as attempts
to silence criticism. (CNN / Reuters, October 01, 1999)
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