After the High Court Order, now the TDSAT has passed a judgement in favour of Viacom18 and has restrained MSM Discovery from representing Viacom18 channels further after 13.7.2010. Viacom18 channels are a part of the Sun18 bouquet, the recently announced alliance between the Network18 Group and the SUN Group.
Today, in its order TDSAT restrained MSM Discovery from representing Viacom18 channels and further restrained MSM Discovery from interfering with operations of Sun18.
Viacom18 had initiated a legal action against MSM Discovery before the TDSAT and claimed Rs. 127 crores for damages, material breaches, misrepresentation and under-reporting of subscriber base. In the petition, Viacom18 also sought for various other interim reliefs and disclosure. Further, Viacom18 had requested TDSAT to prevent MSM Discovery from representing its channels (COLORS, MTV, Nick and Vh1), which are now part of the Sun18 bouquet.
Commenting on the TDSAT order, Viacom18 spokesperson said, “We’re happy that TDSAT has ruled in our favour. The operations of Sun18 have already begun and Viacom18 channels are a part of the Sun18 bouquet.”
Only recently High Court had also passed a judgement, whereby the Bombay High Court refused to grant any order in favour of MSM Discovery, thus paving the way for Sun18 operations.
Only recently, Network18 and the Sun Group had announced their strategic alliance to form Sun18, India’s highest GRP bouquet, Sun18, is be the first truly pan-India distribution company and aims to become one of the dominant players in the Rs.16,000 crores distribution space, over the next 2 years. This alliance also marks the entry of Network18 Group into the Indian television distribution space. As part of the agreement, to begin with, Sun18 will distribute a total of 33 channels across all platforms in India via all networks including cable, DTH, IPTV, HITS and MMDS from Network18, Viacom 18, Sun Network and Disney India Network. With these 33 channels, the Sun18 bouquet is already the highest GRP delivering bouquet in the Indian television space. The option to aggregate third party channels is also one of the opportunities this venture will seek to explore.
The 33 channels distributed by Sun18 include COLORS, MTV, Nick, Vh1, Homeshop18, CNN IBN, CNBC-TV18, CNBC-Awaaz, IBN-7, IBN-Lokmat, The Disney Channel, Disney XD, Hungama TV, Sun TV, KTV, Sun News, Sun Music, Chutti TV, Adithya, Gemini TV, Teja TV, Gemini News, Gemini Music, Navvulu TV, Kushi TV, Surya TV, Kiran TV, Udaya TV, Udaya Movies, U2, Udaya Varthegalu, Ushe TV and Chintu TV.
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