CNBC India on Thursday announced the launch of ‘The Maverick‘ series - another addition to its portfolio of on-ground properties. The inaugural event will feature Jeff Taylor, founder CEO, TMP Worldwide and Monster.com. The Maverick has been conceptualised to celebrate the spirit of entrepreneurship. The Maverick will kick off in Bangalore on the 22 March where corporate bigwigs will meet and interact with Taylor.

‘The Maverick‘ series targets the corporate sector and will be held five times a year where the focus is to highlight the achievements of unconventional business success. The emphasis being on innovation, and features personalities who broke away from traditional methods of conducting business and put their individual stamp on the ventures they were involved with.

"We at CNBC India are extremely excited about The Maverick - as part of our increasing focus towards making our CNBC India programmes relevant for its viewers, we are confident that this property which is all about recognising ground breaking business propositions and success stories through unconventional business methods and in short, mavericks of the corporate world will definitely catch the imagination of people across our viewer segment. While its elements are for the corporate profile, the theme will be radical, unconventional and will take the offbeat road," commented Haresh Chawla, CEO, CNBC India.

Explaining the choice of Taylor, Chawla says: "Jeff Taylor redefined the way one conducts business on the Internet when he named his online listings business in 1994 as the ‘Monster board‘ on a whim. This was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Also, a rarity amongst dot.com‘s, Monster.com is profitable and has been so for 10 quarters."

The Maverick, which will be held 5 times a year, hopes to feature the people behind success stories, people who have created a groundbreaking proposition. These series like the Mutual Fund Awards established by CNBC India, the Enlightenment series would further strengthen the offerings the channel will bring to its viewers.

CNBC India is a joint venture between Television Eighteen India Limited (TV18) and CNBC Asia. Raghav Bahl is the promoter of TV18 and holds 49 per cent stake in CNBC India. CNBC Asia holds a majority 51 per cent stake.

After interminable delays, the government yesterday finally issued an executive order on direct-to-home (DTH) telecast in India and it has confirmed the industry‘s worst fears.

There are no changes from the DTH guidelines issued on 1 November 2000. Concerted industry lobbying for modifications in two principal aspects of the guidelines have been ignored.

The notification limits broadcasting companies‘ equity participation in the venture as well as foreign direct investment to 20 per cent. The other issue for which broadcasters pushed hard was the revenue sharing arrangement. Broadcasters had sought a five-year moratorium on revenue-sharing but the government has stuck to its original stipulation - a revenue sharing arrangement of 10 per cent as annual fee for the licence period of ten years.

The notification states that aside from the 20 per cent FDI ceiling, the rest of the finances could be raised from non-resident Indians (NRIs), foreign institutional investors and overseas corporate bodies.