MUMBAI, MAR 18: The Star TV has announced that it will hold 12 per cent of the post IPO stake in UTV, the Pan Asian media and entertainment company. UTV plans an IPO by June-end.News Corp, the parent company for Star TV originally held a 37 per cent equity stake in UTV which Ronnie Screwvala, the key promoter of UTV had announced he would buy back about six months ago, "the decision that Star would hold 12 per cent of the post IPO stake was arrived at after we reassesed the buy back of shares from News Corp" said Screwvala.Indicating that the buy back was already underway, Screwvala said "the first instalment of the payment schedule for buyback is through at $ 1.5 mn on the 15th of this month".Elaborating, Peter Mukherjea, CEO, Star India said "Our need for content on our growing bouquet of channels and specifically for Internet portals is large, we've always looked at UTV as a premier content creator who will help help us particulalry in taking Indian content around the world".Star TV and UTV further announced "strategic alliances in various areas" which included Content Creation, Animation (coproductions between Fox Kids, Saban and UTV) and Webcasting and Internet Sites.Further, Star TV plans to provide content for UTV's broadband portal Sharkstream.com. The two partners also plan to work closely on "new and niche" channels. Mukherjea said that the channel plans to launch 2 such niche channels - one on health and the other education by January 2001.Further, STAR will ground distribute UTV's bouquet of channels. Screwvala indicated that UTV was actively looking at acquiring regional language channels at this point.Finally, STAR and UTV also plan to enter into production of movies for theatrical and TV release. "we find that distribution rights can be exploited to their fullest if we have various platforms on which they can be released" explains Screwvala.UTV also announced that their "programming output to STAR will not exceed 20 per cent of the total programming" they do for various channels, thereby indicating that there was a cap on the amount of programming that the media company would provide the channel.
