Hindi Entertainment channel Sahara TV is sprucing up its one-hour children‘s band with new shows set to launch.
The kids band, called Just Kids, will be presented by child star Yash Pathak seen recently in the film Rahul as well as the Pepsi commercial alongside "Bollywood badshah" Amitabh Bachchan. Using a child celebrity as an anchor will increase the interactive element on the show, Sahara TV vice-president (publicity, promotions & PR) Priya Raj said.

Just Kids has been slotted between 6 pm to 7 pm Mondays through to Saturdays. On Sundays it is from 6 pm to 6:30 pm as there is a weekly film that is telecast from 6:30 pm onwards.

Just Kids presents two daily half-hour shows Mondays to Saturdays - Legend of Zorro (6 pm to 6:30 pm) and Christopher Columbus. In the Sunday slot is Denver the last Dinosaur.

June will see the channel celebrating another major landmark. The critically acclaimed Haqeeqat, based on true-life incidents of human rights violations, completes a year on air on 17 June, Priya Raj said.

June was also supposed to see the launch of two other shows - Shubh Mangalam Savadham, a thrice-weekly sitcom, to air at 7:30 pm Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Fateh, a reality based weekly one-hour show profiling Indian war heroes, will air Fridays at 9 pm. The launch of both the shows has been pushed forward to July, Priya Raj said.

SABe TV‘s celebrated variety entertainment show Office-Office has won the RAPA (Radio and TV Advertising Practitioners‘ Association of India) Award for "Best Comedy" serial for the year 2001-2002, the second year in a row it is winning it.

On its 27th annual award ceremony the RAPA Awards 2001 declared Office-Office as the best comedy serial. Directed by Rajeev Mehra with Pankaj Kapoor in the lead role, Office-Office is a comedy on the travails of the common man under the bureaucratic system that prevails in India.

Office-Office airs twice a week, Mondays and Tuesdays at 8:00 PM

"We are on track to achieve our aim of becoming the number one network as far as subscription revenues are concerned."

This is what Shantonu Aditya, SET?s executive VP-distribution, asserted when asked to the comment on the cable industry‘s response to the new subscriber regime of Rs 40 per month for the six-channel Sony bouquet (including Discovery and Animal Planet) which became effective 1 April. "Our all-India declared connectivity is currently at 4.5 million and we expect to reach 6 million paid subs by the end of the year," Aditya said. Prior to the price increase Sony was at 3.5 million paid subs, Aditya said.

"Except for the problems we had with Hathway (the Rajan Raheja promoted MSO in which Star has a stake), overall it has been pretty smooth sailing as regards getting acceptance for the new rates we have instituted effective 1 April," Aditya said.

The dispute with Hathway had resulted in Sony switching off its feed to the MSO resulting in the bouquet going off the air in large pockets in Mumbai for over a week. Sony switched on its feed late last Saturday after an agreement was thrashed out. While Aditya was not forthcoming as to the terms of the deal that had been signed with Hathway, industry sources say a declared connectivity of 30,000 is what has been agreed to. This is valid till June and post-June there will be a scaling up of the subscriber numbers.

Almost all the major MSOs across the country have signed on, Aditya said, pointing out this was achieved without the protracted attrition that had often been witnessed by other bouquets following rate hikes. Aditya attributed a large part of this to the "six quality channels on the bouquet whose value is derived independent of each other."