Cost of India's failure

With cricket-crazy India now out of the first round of the World Cup, the financial fallout is starting to become apparent.

India's exit poses questions about the viability of heavy spending around a team that has not won a competition of note outside the subcontinent since 1985.

"The major stakeholders in the tournament - the television channels and major sponsors - risk losing millions, either in cash or kind, if India go out in the first round," wrote Sambit Bal, the editor of leading cricket website Cricinfo last week.

"It's a disaster waiting to happen."

The disaster has now happened

It is difficult to pin down exactly how much money the television channels, advertisers and travel agents who sold packaged cricket trips to the West Indies have lost, but unofficial estimates say corporates will take a hit of at least $35m.

'Big flop'

One of those hit by the debacle may be the World Cup's official broadcaster Sony Entertainment Television.

"The cup will be a big flop in India and advertisers will lose value of their investments. We may lose money even after selling all slots," the company's chief Kunal Dasgupta was quoted as saying by Outlook magazine.

Industry sources say advertising rates had dropped by a third from the 150,000 rupees ($3,260) for 10 seconds during the match telecasts.

For an expected India vs Pakistan game in the second round on 15 April, Sony had reportedly sold 10 second advertising slots for 450,000 rupees ($9,785).

Now advertisers are going to want this money back because the match isn't going to happen.

Mindshare, a media buying agency, reckons viewership for the rest of the matches in the World Cup will now halve in India, which has the biggest TV audience for the game.

So advertisers will now try to cut back on their spends and renegotiate television ad rates and contracts.

'Lost relevance'

PepsiCo, one of the tournaments' four global sponsors, has already decided to scrap a much hyped upbeat campaign around the Indian team with the punch line - 'If you fight, you win'.

"The campaign has lost its relevance. We are taking it off and will replace it with some other Pepsi campaign," a senior official of JWT, the cola major's advertising official told The Economic Times.

A number of companies like Pepsi, Visa and Reebok may now be forced to reconsider their cricket-centric advertising campaigns.

Booksellers have begun withdrawing books on cricket released around the tournament because they are not finding any buyers.

"Buyers don't even want to look at a book on cricket now. So we are hiding them," said Delhi bookseller MK Baig.

Also hit are companies who had planned expensive product launches during the tournament - a leading cell phone maker is reportedly planning to put off the launch of a new model featuring a Bollywood star with a cricket theme.

'Flawed format'

The absence of India in the second round will also mean that less than half of the 4,000 Indians who were expected to travel to the Caribbean for the tournament will finally make the journey, say industry experts.

But Sotc, one India-based travel agency which has booked over 500 packages -60% of them sponsored by companies - priced between $7600 and $ 13,000 say it does not expect many cancellations.

"The customers who have booked with us were not looking at the cricket match being held in the Caribbean but also viewed it as a good summer gateway. It is a mixture of leisure, golf and cricket for them," a Sotc official told the Business Standard newspaper.

Sony's Kunal Dasgupta now says the format of the tournament is flawed.

"In a 48-day tournament, if teams like India and Pakistan are out for playing bad cricket in two matches, there is something really wrong. We were against this format and even told the International Cricket Council to reconsider it," he said.

Ref:http://news.bbc.co.uk/

IAF monitor skies after LTTE air strike

Indian Air force has set up eight radars as a precautionary measure to monitor the skies in the aftermath of Tamil tiger rebels launching their first aerial strike in Sri Lanka two days ago.

The radars were fixed at Seeniappa Darga Casurina jungle near Sundaramudaiyan village in Ramanathapuram district and trials were being held, a senior IAF official told PTI on Wednesday.

A team of 50 Air force personnel, under a commander, would be posted there to monitor the skies, he said. There was also a plan to set up a permanent Air-base near Seeniappa Dargah, the official, who wished not to be named, said.

The decision to set up radars comes two days after LTTE carried out an aerial attack at a military airbase in Colombo, killing three persons and injuring 16. Sri Lankan president Mahindra Rajapakse had warned that LTTE's air strike capability was a threat to the entire South Asian region, particularly India and Indonesia.

Meanwhile, the Indian navy has begun round-the-clock patrolling of the seas from the Forward Observation Point (FOP) near Dhanushkodi since Tuesday. Twelve marine commandos have been posted at FOP, to which communication links have been established.

The coast guard would also patrol the international maritime border in the Palk Straits, official sources said. Besides these measures, policemen manning the check-posts had been asked to inspect every vehicle passing through coastal roads, they said.

Murdering female infanticide going to be end

A special committee comprising women police and NGOs will be formed to keep a check on female infanticide and sex selective abortion cases in the district, said City Police Commissioner A Subramanian.

Inaugurating a trainers’ training programme on ‘Declining Child Sex Ratio: Perspectives, Interventions, Strategies’, which commenced here on Tuesday, Subramanian said apart from taking preventive measures, including raids, the committee would conduct extensive awareness programmes for the prevention of such inhuman acts.

Besides women police and NGOs, the committee would have representatives from Women Self Help Groups, other government department staff, village nurses, tahsildars and ‘thalayaris’.

Steps would be taken for the establishment of the committee, which would prevent infanticide and foeticide cases in the villages concerned, he added.

Analysing the background for the deplorable situation, he said that families, who viewed the girl child as a burden, are indulging in such inhuman acts.

Referring to a survey conducted in the district some years ago, the Commissioner said that about 188 villages in Madurai were identified having high number of foeticide and infanticide cases. Police are on high alert in curbing the functioning of pre-natal diagnostic centres and also doctors performing sex determination tests.

District Social Welfare Officer M Jayalakshmi, in her address, said the protection of women could be taken care of by women themselves.

She also added that affected women would be provided asylum in care homes (sevai illams), functioning under the Social Welfare department. SIRD director M Jeeva presided over the meeting.

Raj TV - provide content for Singapore channel

Raj Television Network Limited has signed an agreement to provide content for Singapore's Vasantham Central channel, catering to the Tamil community in the city-state.

The agreement with the state owned TV12 is for a period of two years. Raj TV expects revenues of over Rs.3 million every year from this arrangement, the company said here.

Raj TV will share its popular bouquet of programmes, which includes Tamil films, serials, soaps, game shows, reality shows and news.

'Vasantham Central is a part of the Mediacorp Group and is a highly popular channel in Singapore,' M. Raveendran, director operations of Raj Television Network, told reporters here.

'We will offer Vasantham Central some of our past, present and future content and based on the response we plan to launch our entire bouquet of channels in Singapore soon,' he added.

Raj TV will look at understanding the demands and tastes of the Indian population in Singapore and eventually conceptualise its own independent programmes.

The strategy would be to use the experience gained through this association to launch an exclusive channel in Southeast Asia, he said.

'We are looking at overseas markets aggressively for content export, especially countries like Malaysia, Europe, Africa and the US which have high potential for growth,' said Raveendran, adding that the company would also look into launching their own channels in these markets.

Raj TV already has content syndication arrangements with the Sri Lankan channel Roopavahini as well as Britain based Tamil channels Deepam TV and CIEE Television.

Raj TV has the largest movie database in Tamil Nadu and also holds the rights for around 1,384 Tamil films comprising old classics and recent blockbusters.