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From: R H G Davies
Date: 12 October 1993
CC: PS
PS/Mr Lennox-Boyd PS/PUS
Mr Hum
Mr Masefield
Sir M Burton
Mr Alston o.r.
нив
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214
FED
SEGISTRY
HKD
Aoson Taken
SEAD
SAD MED
News Department
Sir J Ramsden
PS/Mr Goodlad (by faxlock to Hong Kong)
BBC WORLD SERVICE TELEVISION (WSTV) AND STAR TV
1. WSTV told me late yesterday of an impending new development in their relations with the new News Corporation management of Star TV. It looks very much as if divorce proceedings are about to start.
2. WSTV say that, in spite of the meetings they have had with the Murdoch management team at Star, relations have remained cold and distant. Matters are coming to a head over WSTV's active plans to start an Arabic service for the Middle East on Arabsat. Arabsat's footprint overlaps in the region with Asiasat's, and WSTV's contract with Star excludes any competitive duplication of their service. WSTV say however that the proposed Arabsat service is a separate venture in a different language and with different programmes. Their legal advice is that it does not breach the contract with Star TV. The new Star management take a different view, and have been threatening to terminate the contract if WSTV continue with plans to broadcast from Arabsat. WSTV have now decided that a show-down is inevitable, and to take the offensive themselves. They hope to be in a position to issue a writ tomorrow (13 October) against Star to make them withdraw the threat of termination.
3. Either the issue will be fought out in the courts (in Britain), in which case WSTV say they are confident they will win, or Murdoch will decide that litigation is not worth the expense and back down. But in any event the WSTV/Star partnership will clearly have no future beyond December 1994 when either side has the legal right to terminate. WSTV's line now is that they will be quite happy to make the break.
/They
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