The Indian Broadcasting Foundation has a new chairman in KS Sarma, the new Prasar Bharati CEO.

Sarma‘s appointment was decided at an IBF board meeting held in New Delhi yesterday. The meeting was reportedly attended by Zee TV CEO Sandeep Goyal, Star India head Peter Mukerjea, Discovery Networks India head Deepak Shourie, Turner Broadcasting‘s Anshuman Mishra, UTV‘s Ronnie Screwvala, Sahara TV‘s Mahesh Prasad, Sabe TV vice chairman Markand Adhikari and Eenadu‘s I Venkat.

Sarma replaces Anil Baijal, former Prasar Bharati acting CEO and additional secretary in the Information and Broadcasting ministry. Reports say the IBF board meeting also discussed other issues like the new unified television rating system being put into place with the impending merger of TAM and INTAM. Conditional Access System and the role of the IBF role in WTO negotiations were also discussed, say reports.

The long pending issue of payment defaults by ad agencies to broadcasters was also taken up at the meeting, reports say, with the IBF even considering a ban on defaulting agencies. The IBF is likely to meet with representatives of the AAAI in Mumbai to discuss the issue.

The 2002 MTV Video Music Awards will be hosted for the fourth time running in New York city and will be aired live on the channel from Radio City Music Hall on 29 August this year.
MTV and MTV2 president Van Toffler said the VMAs are being moved up one week from the first Thursday of September, when the channel‘s most visible awards are historically held.

MTV also announced that Salli Frattni and Dave Sirulnick will return as executive producers and Alex Coltti will return as producer of the 19th annual "Video Music Awards". The VMAs will be available to a potential viewing audience of over one billion people via MTV‘s 37 channels reaching 382.1 million households around the world, says an official release.

Ballots for the 2002 VMAs will be sent out to an exclusive industry group and viewers who will determine nominees for the telecast. Approximately, 500 viewers and individuals representing record labels, music journalists and video producers select the nominees for the awards categories encompassing wide ranging contemporary forms as rap, dance, R&B and alternative.