MUMBAI: Sony and Discovery Communications are axing the joint venture company that they ran for over 12 years in India. Caught in the midst of a TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) regulation that outlawed the bundling of television channels across broadcast companies, both have consented to divorce and build their own pay TV models. MSM Discovery, the TV channel distribution company in which Sony has 74 per cent stake and Discovery the rest, is set to disband. Multi Screen Media (MSM) and Discovery will have their independent affiliate teams and stitch their own deals with distribution platform operators. Signalling the end, Discovery has already started doing its distribution deals with direct-to-home (DTH) companies. Dish TV is the first negotiated contract. “For contracts that have expired with DTH platforms, Discovery is directly negotiating. In case of other DTH operators where MSM Discovery has a running deal, Discovery has started informing that it will independently cut its deal,” said a source familiar with the development. MSM and Discovery are deciding on the divorce date. “The only debate left now is when they should separate. Should it be effective from 1 January or 1 April 2015? The decision on the date will most probably be taken within a week,” the source confided. MSM, however, will continue to distribute the channels of TV Today Network. “MSM has a deal to distribute TV Today channels,” the source said. The break-up of MSM Discovery, to be formally announced soon, brings to an end the old era of marriages in the television distribution space. MediaPro Enterprises, the giant of all such couplings, was the first to end, with Rupert Murdoch’s Star India and Subhash Chandra’s Zee parting ways in April this yeaR
