brand launch is always a nervously exciting affair. And when the matter at hand involves concept selling and a large investment to boot, it becomes doubly perilous. So it has been with the Tata Sky project which, at a projected investment of more than Rs 3,000 crore, is the largest outlay ever in the Indian media business. And it has been mired in delays, for one reason or another, primarily regulatory (for the curious, STAR's first brush with DTH in India was in 1997). The stakes are � pardon the pun � sky high.

It must have been some relief, therefore, when, within six months of launch, the Tata-News Corporation joint venture (Tatas own 80 per cent; Rupert Murdoch's company, the rest) could announce acquiring 500,000 subscribers. "Nowhere in the world has a Direct to Home (DTH) venture managed to get so many subscribers in such a short time," beams Vikram Mehra, head � consumer marketing, Tata Sky Ltd. ... more