CBS eyes India TV foray with Reliance

Reliance Media World, controlled by Indian industrialist Anil Ambani, is in talks to form a television joint venture with CBS Broadcasting of the US in what would be the latest foray by a US network into India.

CBS was one of “a number of groups” Reliance was in talks with about the plan to roll out a group of channels for Indian pay television, a Reliance spokesperson said, declining to give details.

The discussions involved the creation of three English-language channels on Reliance’s Pay TV platform that would run mostly CBS-created shows such as NCIS and CSI, people familiar with the discussions said.

A deal, similar to one CBS struck with Chellomedia, a UK subsidiary of Liberty Global, last September, is expected to be reached in the next few weeks, countering local reports of a deal this week.

The joint venture might also look at developing a Hindi-language general entertainment channel.

The joint venture would be 50 per cent owned by each party, these people said.

The partnership would give CBS access to one of the fastest growing emerging media and entertainment markets.

India has the second-biggest number of cable viewing households after China at more than 80m.

This, together with India’s relatively liberal foreign ownership and content regimes has made it the most important market in Asia for many media groups.

Indian television generated Rs257bn ($5.5bn) in revenue last year and clocked a compound annual growth rate of 12 per cent between 2006 and 2009, according to a report by KPMG, the consultancy.

CBS could bring its hit television sitcoms to India in competition with the existing local ventures of US-based networks, including News Corp, Time Warner, Viacom and Walt Disney.

Any move into television by Reliance Media World, which runs a number of radio stations, would round out Mr Ambani’s ambitions of building a large-scale media group.

He has a tie-up with US director Steven Spielberg to produce films and has signed production agreements with Hollywood stars, including Brad Pitt and George Clooney.

He has interests in Hindi and Indian regional language film production and distribution.

This month, the group’s film arm, Reliance Big Pictures, released Kites, for Hindi and English-speaking audiences. It was the first Bollywood offering to make the top 10 in the US on an opening weekend.

But if CBS enters India with Reliance, it will be stepping into a highly competitive market with low revenue per household.

Local cable operators under-report their revenue to broadcasters, forcing networks to cram their programming with advertising to generate more revenue.

“The combination of a strong economy, a larger pay TV audience and digitisation will ... boost the market for broadcast groups,” Vivek Couto, executive director at Media partners Asia, a research group, said in a recent report.

But he added: “Competition will remain intense, as the main theatre of war shifts to regional markets.”