A little over a month after media baron Subhash Chandra‘s Zee Telefilms Ltd, announced its promoters had placed 5 million shares with a U.S.-based institutional investor, another 2.5 million shares were offloaded yesterday with an FII.

Though Zee officials did not divulge the price, the placement will raise about Rs 270 million, according to merchant banking sources. The Financial Express, quoting market sources, said the deal was done on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) at a price of Rs 106.50 per share, amounting to around Rs 266.2 million. The transaction represents about 0.6 per cent of ZTL‘s paid-up capital and further lowers the promoters‘ stake to around 58.3 per cent.

According to a company release, the proceeds from the placement will be paid back to ZTL upon settlement of the transaction. The group promoters had earlier borrowed Rs 2200 million from ZTL for the Essel group. They had announced that the entire amount would be returned by June 30. However, the Essel group has since then managed to pay back Rs 1100 million in two tranches. An initial payment of RS 600 million was paid and last month‘s transaction raised another RS 500 million. CIBC Oppenheimer was the investor in last month‘s deal and paid slightly less than Rs 100 a share for its stock holding.

AC Saha, president, corporate finance and strategy, Essel Group of companies, said: "Placement of these shares reinforces the promoters‘ commitment to fulfil their obligations, despite the share price of Zee Telefilms LTD not being very attractive at this stage.

The figure of RS 2200 million is what the Zee Network had reportedly advanced to Essel group investment companies, which was subsequently transferred to cornered bull Ketan Parekh‘s investment companies.

The announcement comes amidst a spurt in activity around the scrip over the last few days. The speculative activity is apparently linked to reports that Chandra may be willing to lower his personal stake to half the present equity which would effectively deprive him of management control of the company.

It‘s been a year and ten months since the Viacom-owned kid‘s channel Nickelodeon entered Indian air space but it might as not have come at all considering the kind of recognition levels it has achieved till date. In a fresh attempt to get it some viewer cachet, Nickelodeon will be launching a Hindi band of programming - "Nick Masala" - from 4 September.

Beginning the first Tuesday of September (the 4th) "Nick Masala" will be aired thrice a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. On Tuesdays and Thursdays the slotting is in the evening band from 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM while on Sundays it will be in the noon band from 11 am to 1 PM Depending on how the new initiative is received, MTV India - which is directly responsible for pushing the channel in India (without disturbing the existing distribution arrangement with Zee that is) - will take a call on whether to increase Hindi programming.

How Nickelodeon is being distributed by the Zee-promoted Siticable has been a major sore point, with the pay TV service reportedly managing to get a cable TV penetration of less than 3-4 million, and a paying subscriber base less than one tenth of that.

Queried about what Zee was doing to improve things, Partha Sinha senior VP, marketing and communication said a promotional push which involved a host of on-ground activities - including direct-to-people contact efforts and other promotional spots - were in the pipeline to increase the visibility of the channel. Sinha said the rollout of these initiatives would take off by September-end.

DISNEY SHOWS ON FOUR ALPHA CHANNELS: Sinha confirmed that Zee had entered into a deal with Buena Vista (distributors of Disney programming in India) for airing dubbed Disney shows on four of Zee‘s Alpha regional channels - Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, and Punjabi. As for whether there were plans to bring Disney onto the other Alpha channels, Sinha replied in the negative.

When queried as to whether there wasn‘t cross-purpose activity going on when Disney shows were airing on Alpha channels while Zee was supposed to be promoting Nickelodeon, Sinha had this to say. He justified the move on the grounds that before Nickelodeon could be introduced onto the Alpha channels it would have to become more familiar to viewers. A chicken and egg scenario it would seem.

In the meantime, Nickelodeon still has a mountain to climb before it can turn from being a mere blip on the viewerscope to something more substantial.

ESPN Star Sports (ESS) and Astro, its Malaysian Pay TV Partner, have reached an agreement to make available exclusive coverage of the English Premier League soccer matches on their Pay TV platform for the next three seasons, according to a company release.

Announcing the conclusion of the broadcast contract with Astro, ESS managing director Rik Dovey said that it would provide viewers in Malaysia with expanded coverage of the EPL, including five live matches a week on ESPN and Star Sports.

"We‘re thrilled to have arrived at this broadcast agreement with Astro," Dovey said. "Now Malaysian football fans can enjoy Premier League action at a level they‘ve never before experienced."

ESS will broadcast 165 live games and over 1000 hours of EPL coverage per season.

Going strong on its expansion plan despite the depressed media scenario, the Ramoji Rao owned Eenadu Television Network on Wednesday added "ETV Urdu" to their kitty of regional channels. The 24-hour free-to-air digital channel was finally launched on 15 August (Independence Day) after a long wait by the chief editor Eenadu group of publications and chairman of the Ramoji Film City (RFC), CH Ramoji Rao, at the RFC complex in Hyderabad.

ETV has been building its programming content for the Urdu channel for more than one-and-a-half years now. The target audience will not only be the Urdu-speaking audiences in India but also the Gulf countries. The Urdu spoken on the channel will not be pure Urdu (which not many people understand) but that spoken by common people so as to give it a broader viewership, company officials say.

Khaas Baat (Urdu News)

The Channel will have a fair mix of entertainment and information with hourly news updates, telefilms, family dramas, daily soaps, devotional and musical programmes. The USP of the channel will be fresh and original programming rather than dubbed or outsourced programmes, say officials. Special efforts have been taken to strengthen the news section. Khaas Baat, a news capsule specially designed to cover Urdu speaking areas. ETV has tied up with Reuters Television, CNN International and Transworld International so as to ensure comprehensive coverage of international news and current affairs, according to a company release.

Adakaar is a weekly acting competition hosted by well known actor Nirmal Pandey. And for those die-hard fans of Urdu poetry, Mushaira, a monthly mega event of lyrical excitement, will quench their thirst.

To develop the channel‘s indentity, films will not be shown in the initial period. Instead telefilms are being produced that will be telecast exclusively on the channel. Game shows, talk shows and song-based programmes like Mehfil, Gazal Sara, Qawwali are also going to be an intrinsic part of the programming.

The majority of the programming is being done in-house though there are some programmes which are on commissioned basis. The network‘s headquarters is in Hyderabad.

On the ad rate front, the figures being quoted would appear a tad optimistic and it remains to be seen whether the channel will be able to get buyers for its time slots. Spot rate for prime time (7pm to 10pm) has been kept at Rs 20,000 as per the rate card. Industry sources say as of now no advertiser has been confirmed though talks are going on.

A still from the serial Tumhara Intezar Hai

Even on the distribution front, the channel is likely to face a long haul. According to industry sources, cable connectivity is going to be a major issue the channel will face. In this direction, channel executives have been contacting cable operators in Mumbai and also distributing set top boxes.

That apart, looking at the past record of the group and the amount of homework done by ETV Urdu as far as its programming goes, the channel is certainly expected to make a difference in today‘s cluttered scenario.

ETV already has Telugu, Bengali, Marathi and Kannada channels. Next in the pipeline from the ETV stable are Gujarati and Oriya channels.

Technical Specification :

ETV Urdu:
Satellite - APR-I (INSAT-2E) at 83.5 degree East
Downlink frequency - 4005 MHz
Downlink Polarisartion - Vertical
Symbol rate - 27000 Kg Symbol/sec
FEC - 3/4
Downlink EIRP - 38 dbW
Signal type Digital,MPEG 2/clear
Free-To-Air.