New research shows that the world’s households each spend an average of $182.4 on home entertainment. This is set to rise to $225 by 2010, and means there will be an average increase of 4.7% for every year since 2000.

Digital Home Entertainment: Future Consumer Spending Habits, a new report from Informa Telecoms & Media, discovered some intriguing shifts taking place in expenditure on the four main types of in-home entertainment (music, TV, games and film). These changes are set to significantly alter the balance between each sector. As the average annual household spend on entertainment steadily increases, TV is set to take a progressively larger share of the overall pie.

In terms of total share of spending on the four, TV remains top. In 2000 it accounted for 44% of the combined revenues, ahead of film, music and games with 24%, 23% and 9% respectively. By 2010 TV will take 53% of the total, followed by film with 19%, music with 15% and games with 13%.

TV’s growth is boosted by the rollout of digital and associated services. About 30 million digital TV homes were added to the total in 2005 alone, but overall penetration rates are, with some notable exceptions such as the U.S. and UK, way below 50%, leaving plenty of room for growth.

The category to suffer most from the rise in competing entertainment spending is recorded music. Simon Dyson, author of the report said “with a limited amount of money to spend on entertainment, particularly amongst younger demographics, the widespread availability of free music via P2P has given users the opportunity to have their cake and eat it. Rather than replace one home entertainment category with another, P2P users have been able to reduce spending on music while at the same time spend more on another category.”

Although much more complex than previous format advances, the evolution of music delivery through the internet and by the mobile phone handset is expected to return global music sales to growth. The decline in overall hard format sales of soundcarriers is not forecast to reverse but will be more than compensated by the rise of internet and more importantly, mobile sales, driven largely by ringtones.

Time Warner has said that Miles R. Gilburne has decided not to stand for re-election to its Board of Directors in 2006. Gilburne will continue to serve as a Director of Time Warner until the company’s 2006 annual meeting of stockholders.

Time Warner’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Dick Parsons said, “On behalf of Time Warner’s Board of Directors and senior management team, I thank Miles Gilburne for his years of dedicated service to the company, both as a Board member and as a senior executive at America Online, where he was instrumental in building AOL into an industry leader. Our company has greatly benefited from his pioneering energy and forward-thinking insights. We will also miss his intelligence and creativity. We wish him well.”

Gilburne said: “Although Time Warner is a great company and serving on its Board of Directors has been a great honor, I have concluded that my expertise and skills can best be leveraged at this time as a participant in younger companies with a more exclusive focus on digital products and services for an increasingly networked world. Although I will not stand for re-election, I will serve as a Director for the remainder of my term and will continue to work with Dick Parsons and my fellow Board members in our ongoing efforts to deliver value for Time Warner shareholders.”

Gilburne, 54, served as a Director of America Online from 1999 until the AOL/Time Warner merger in January 2001, and has been a Director of the company since that date. From 1995 to 1999, he was Senior Vice President, Corporate Development at America Online, where he was responsible for strategic planning and for major corporate acquisitions, joint ventures and alliances. Since 2000, Gilburne has been a managing member of ZG Ventures, LLC, a venture capital and investment company.

News Corporation has promoted three senior executives within its Corporate Finance Group. The appointments, which are effective immediately, recognize the significant responsibilities these professionals have within News Corporation. Each of the executives will continue to report to John Nallen, News Corporation’s Deputy Chief Financial Officer.

Robert Gannon, 45, has been promoted to Senior Vice President and Corporate Controller of News Corporation. Gannon will continue to be responsible for all internal and external reporting as well as oversight of global sourcing arrangements. Prior to this appointment, Gannon was a Vice President and held various senior accounting roles within News Corporation, including Corporate Reporting and Director of Internal Audit at the start of his career with News Corporation in 1985.

Paula Wardynski, 47, has been promoted to Senior Vice President, Finance of News Corporation. Wardynski, who joined News Corporation in 1985, will continue to be responsible for News Corporation’s worldwide treasury operations and related technology initiatives and will retain her role as Treasurer of News America Incorporated.

Ray Boudiette, 44, has been promoted to Senior Vice President, Corporate Audit. Boudiette, formerly a Vice President, joined News Corporation in 2000. He will continue to be responsible for the worldwide Corporate Audit Group and related compliance and corporate governance projects.

Sunil Sahjwani, Chief Executive Officer, Percept Picture Company, is joining the Bennett, Coleman and Company, which controls television channels - Zoom and Times Now. Sahjwani will work on the Zoom and Radio Mirchi brands.

Sahjwani would be reporting to BCCL President, Arun Arora for his Zoom Labor, also will he report to A P Parigi for his Mirchi Labor He is not new to the Times Group. In 2003, he was the National Creative Director of Radio Mirchi, he was the NCD for more than two years.

A highly places source in Times informs, “Yes, it is true that Sunil Sahjwani is joining us and we are happy to see him back. We have not decided the exact position of Sahjwani, but are deliberating on it seriously. Sahjwani will join from Jan 23.”

At Percept, Sahjwani is credited for the inclusion of Ram Gopal Varma’s ‘Within’ and Colin Farrell-starrer Tree of Life. At Mirchi, Sahjwani was a key member of the team and he has leant backbone to the station’s programming.

Note, Radio Mirchi has recently bagged licences for all the seven FM stations, Nagpur, Kanpur, Lucknow, Surat, Jaipur, Hyderabad and Bangalore, that it had bid for in the first leg of the Phase II FM radio bidding held by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry. It already has six more licences, it is learnt that this proposition will be further delved with Sahjwani joining.

IT and communications minister Dayanidhi Maran on Tuesday said that the government is keen on setting up of IPTV in the country, with the association of MTNL and BSNL.

“MTNL and BSNL have already been asked to ride on Internet Protocol Television, IPTV, Mumbai and Chennai would have cable TV through telephone lines soon.” Maran said.

According to PTI, “IPTV technology is gaining tremendous industry momentum and aggressive deployment among service providers worldwide and in India. IP-TV offers a win-win situation for both the operator and the customer,” says Sudhir Narang, Senior VP Service Provider & Government Business, Cisco Systems, India.

“The entertainment industry is a well-established industry in India with television, movies, etc. Gaining broad acceptance and viewership countrywide. Delivering entertainment content over broadband networks (IPTV) will truly empower the user to gain control of their content according to the times pre-set by them” says Vijay Yadav, Managing Director, South Asia Operations, UT Starcom.

Maran also said that ’server farms’, were to encourage Web hosting within the country. The ministry is also mulling setting up 1,00,000 information kiosks across India, he said.

“We are preparing a Cabinet note on setting up of server farms, and it should be ready soon,” Mr Maran said. “By June, we should be able to come up with server firms of international standards, By doing this, the cost of hosting Web sites will come down, and speed will be excellent,” he added.

The ministry is planning another major initiative for setting up information kiosks or “common service centres” across the country. “We are planning to set up about 100,000 kiosks this year (2006),” aran said.

On the 2006-07 budget wishlist, Maran said the industry is already receiving assistance from the government, but said he expected something for the business process outsourcing segment.

Prime Focus, one of India’s leading Post-production and visual effects studio services house, has filed its draft red herring prospectus with the Securities & Exchange Board of India to raise Rs 117.25.

The plan includes setting up of high-end digital studios at Los Angeles, London and Dubai and expanding its domestic operations. To part finance this expansion, the company soon proposes to enter the capital market with a public issue of Rs 100 crore through a 100% book building process.

There is a greenshoe option of Rs 15 crore (Rs 150 million), taking it aggregate to Rs 115 crore (Rs 1.15 billion). It has filed the DRHP with Sebi for the purpose.

Out of the proposed offer, 60% of the issue shall be allocated on a proportionate basis to QIB bidders, out of which 5% of the QIB portion shall be available for allocation on proportionate basis to mutual funds only, and the remainder of QIB portion shall be available for allocation on proportionate basis to all QIB bidders, including mutual funds.

It may be recalled that in a spree of media acquisitions last year, ADAG acquired a controlling stake in Adlabs Films and a minority stake in Prime Focus. In March 2004, Prime Focus had offered 684,000 shares to Adlabs at Rs 48.40 per share. Three months later, Jhunjhunwalla picked up his stake at Rs 33.08 per share. And in June 2005, Reliance Capital, through a bought 1.5 million shares at Rs 166.66 a piece.

The book running lead managers to the issue are Centrum Capital and ICICI Securities. Intime Spectrum Registry is the registrar.

Sony Pictures Entertainment Films of India, SPE is readying for one of the biggest releases and promos for a Disney film in India. The studio is set to release The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, based on a book by C.S. Lewis, across theatres countrywide with an overall spend of around Rs 1 crore. At the same time, a 100-plus prints of the film will be distributed across the country.

The Disney movie, a Buena Vista International product, is being distributed by SPE, which markets BVI titles in India. The movies is definitely one of the strongest campaigns around a BVI product in India launched by SPE. The other similarly big campaigns centering on Disney-BVI movies include titles like Pearl Harbor, The Incredibles and Bug’s Life

For the movie, direct brand tie-ups with SPE involve entities like Star TV, Tourism New Zealand and the Crosswords chain of bookstores. They will hold contests, which will have prizes like a trip to Disneyland in Hong Kong or New Zealand where the film has been shot.

The Chronicles of Narnia saw the biggest opening in 2005 at $65 million. This also happens to be the third-best opening for Disney as a studio after titles like The Incredibles, which opened at $70.5 million and Finding Nemo, which churned out around $70.3 million in the opening week. Till date, Narnia has grossed about $533 million globally, with the US grossings pegged at $250 million.

For the India release, SPE is also working on recreating Narnia’s magic world at the multiplex venues where the movie will open. Together with the English version, the 100-plus prints will also cover a Hindi, Tamil and Telegu dubbed rollout.

The Telecom Disputes Settlement Appellate Tribunal, TDSAT, has decided that hotels cannot be deemed as subscribers or consumers of cable television feed and hence are not covered by the Tariff Notification of TRAI.

The order, dated January 17, 2006 has directed hotels to enter into separate agreements with cable content providers for receiving feed for displaying in hotel rooms. This order was passed on a petition filed by the Federation of Hotel and Restaurants Association of India, FHRAI.

TDSAT has also said that since TRAI has set the tariff for domestic consumption of cable content, they should also consider fixing the tariff for commercial usage of the feed. It says that such an effort would end confusion on various usages of cable feed. TDSAT has also allowed satellite channels or their representatives to raise demands upon the hotels for the usage of cable feed till date, for which no payment has been made so far as per a commercial arrangement.

Note in August last year, FHRAI was again in the news for the feud with major broadcasters like Zee, Sony and Star over the due payments of Cable Television feed. Broadcaster officials have gone to court and were conducting serious searches in hotels with the help of the police. The hoteliers, in turn, have taken their case to the TDSAT.

Hotels like Oberoi, ITC and Taj Group have already started paying commercial rates for cable TV feed, but the smaller hotels have decided to fight it out. A premier city hotel, which was paying RS 16,000 per month for cable in 400 rooms, now pays around RS 20 lakh.

Ketan Kanakia of Novex Communications, who represents Sony and Zee for commercial establishments, earlier said to Televisionpoint.com, “The contract between broadcasters and the cable operators and Multi-system operators allows them to offer the feed only to domestic consumers. As per the con tract, they do not have any right to supply to commercial establishments like hotels, hospitals, pubs and restaurants.”

Tejinder Singh, who represents Star in western India and BBC for the entire country, said “While some of the top hospitals are paying us, others are not, on the excuse that they are charitable organisations. We are ready to negotiate and not charge commercial rates for all the cabins that are made available free of cost at these hospitals, but they must pay for the rest,” Tejinder Singh says.

I got talking to television stars and producers to share their views on what they expect for themselves and for the medium of television in 2006.

Smriti Irani from Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi says,”This is a year filled with great possibilities for me. It’s the year of my debut in Gujarati theatre and the beginning of my association with cinema. I hope it works out. As for television, content will continue to rule whether it’s a soap or reality TV.”

Iqbal Khan, lead actor in Kaisa Yeh Pyar Hai says,”By God’s grace things have been going splendidly for me. My future is in
Allah’s hands. I’m going to continue to work hard and do my bit on television. Everyone can see, the popularity of the medium is growing like a wild forest. It just doesn’t seem to end”

More: indiantelevision.com

The Interpublic Group, the world’s third-largest advertising company, has accused Frank Lowe, the founder and former chairman of one of its major agencies, of trying to poach clients and employees for a shop he is starting.

Interpublic said Friday that it had filed a complaint against Lowe, who founded Lowe Worldwide, for violating his “contractual and fiduciary duties” and “using confidential and proprietary information” to damage Interpublic and Lowe Worldwide.

Interpublic said it would ask arbitrators for an injunction against him, as well as unspecified monetary damages.

The complaint is seen as a signal by Michael Roth, chief executive of Interpublic, based in New York, that the substantial financial and operational difficulties that plague the company will not keep him from defending what he perceives as its essential interests.

More: iht.com