The citadel is cracking. After retaining his employees for longer than many an Indian production house, Prannoy Roy‘s New Delhi Television (NDTV) has been hit by some defections.

Three top anchors and programme hosts - Shireen, Arup Ghosh and Sharad Sharma - quit NDTV today to set up a TV software company called Network 1 Pvt Ltd. Shama, the chief executive of the proposed company, says the aim is to build up an organisation where talent would be given due recognition. As if this was not enough, NDTV has lost two other senior journalists in its Mumbai bureau, including long time Mumbai correspondent Shishir Joshi.

The Sharma-Shireen-Ghosh trio is expected to make programmes for other satellite channels and, according to Mumbai-based sources in the TV industry, are expected to open negotiations with TV channels soon. NDTV was unavailable for comments. But sources in NDTV said that the rebel `Trimurti‘ put in their papers on Tuesday morning after meeting up with Prannoy Roy, who has just returned after a trip to the US.

Elaborating on their mission statement to realise their dreams in a growing industry as entrepreneurs, Sharma says, "Network 1 is going to bring in the latest digital technology and the best talent to create a world class production facility that has vision and credibility."

According to Arup Ghosh, one of the best bilingual anchors that NDTV had, "I believe that talent should be given its due recognition with enthusiasm and teamwork complementing it."

However, Ghosh refused to elaborate when asked whether he meant that during his over five years of stay at NDTV his talent had not been given due recognition and that was the reason for quitting. The initial programming thrust will be producing, anchoring and presenting TV programmes of the non-fiction genre for anybody and everybody. Plans are to add the Internet and radio also to their portfolio and dabble in the entertainment sector too.

Media watchers see this as a major dent in the castle of Roy, one of the most well-known faces of Indian TV. Their contention: at this juncture when NDTV‘s relationship with the Rupert Murdoch-owned Star TV is uneasy owing to various issues, three top anchors and hosts quitting the organsiation will make life that much diffuclt for the Roys, while that much easy for NDTV‘s competitors.

Discovery Communications will bring to the Indian subcontinent two more channels next year, including the popular ‘Discovery Health‘ and another channel which will be a toss between its history channel called ‘Civilisation‘, ‘Discovery Kids‘ and ‘Discovery Travel & Adventure‘. All these blocs are currently aired on the main channel.
Discovery health would include some India specific programming including Yoga and Ayurveda in keeping with the channel‘s policy of focussing on local programming.

Discovery has however decided to continue as a stand-alone platform rather than join one of the larger broadcasting bouquets such as Zee, Sony, CNBC or Nickelodeon. National Geographic which is being included in the Star TV bouquet is cutting into Discovery‘s revenues due to attractive packages offered by Star TV. Discovery markets itself for Rs 5 per subscriber while National Geographic markets itself for Rs 2 per subscriber.

Doordarshan‘s marketing seems to be working with more and more Indians opting to stay in India and watch the Olympics on Doordarshan than spend a little more than a lakh to go to Sydney.

However analysts watching Doordarshan‘s marketing of the Games have compared it with ESPNs and Star Sports glitzy advertisements on their bouquet of channels and have criticised Doordarshan for not doing so on its wide network of channels. DD is expecting to rake in Rs 200 million in ad revenue.

Pritish Nandy Communications has received the broadcast management rights for the three DD channels and is claiming that its revenues will soar from Rs 140 million in ‘99-00 to Rs 500 million this year. The fact that no one expects Indians to win any medals and Indians obsession with cricket have not helped either.

To add icing to the cake, DD will be flying a 21 member team to Sydney to customise the feed for India and provide special graphics. Analysts however feel that DD would have been better off sticking to the live feed in the form of six channels which it will get from the Sydney Games authorities.

All this talk does however make one feel that the Olympic athletes are not going to be the only ones to perform gymnastics this Olympics. Indian viewers may well have to do some head stands to get a load of the action, knowing DD‘s tendency to mess up even when the going is simple and good.

Sun Television Network, the regional leader in South India will soon launch its version of ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati‘ called ‘Kodeeswaran‘ in Tamil in October.The show will be hosted by popular Tamil film actor Sarat Kumar who will don the southern shoes of Amitabh Bachchan. The master brain behind this Tamil game show is ace quiz master Derek O‘Brien of the Bournvita Quiz fame.

Except for the one crore prize money everything will be different. The time slots for this programme will be from 9 to 10 pm on Saturdays and Sundays, the concept will be regionalised to suit the southern audiences and will target the Tamil speaking which is estimated to be one-third of India‘s population. Sun TV is banking on the fact that the Hindi money spinner was not very popular with the southern folk because of its Hindi content. The show is expected to further complicate things for Zee‘s 10 crore show to be launched in October.

News TV India Ltd, the Indian arm of Rupert Murdoch-owned Star TV, is all set to acquire a 25% stake in Rajan Raheja-owned cable network, Hathway Cable & Datacom Private Ltd.
A formal announcement to this effect is expected to be made by Star officials next week.

With this deal, Star TV would have its long standing need of owning a cable distribution network, completed. With its rival channel Zee Telefilms owning its own cable network, Siti Cable, Star felt the serious need to strengthen its distribution platform.

Hathway is one of the leading MSO (multi system operator) in India with a substantial share of consumers in the cable distribution business. The other leading MSO‘s in the country are Siti Cable, owned Zee Telefilms, and Hinduja, owned IN CableNet.

Having gained access to the cable distribution network, Star can also go ahead with its convergence plans and other plans for the Internet sector. It has already set up a new media division to look into broadband, convergence and other Internet related services in the country.