After waiting for nearly seven years to launch his first four channels, Kalanithi Maran, the 35-year old chairman and managing director of Sun TV, is now going all out and launching four new channels within a span of seven weeks.
May 19 saw the launch of their new Telegu movie & music channel, Teja TV. The channel is expected to take on market leader Ramoji Roa‘s Eenadu TV. The total ad revenue for the state is about Rs 1.3 billion and Eenadu has the lions share of almost Rs 600 million, Sun‘s Gemini is second with Rs 400 million share.

Sun also launched its second Kannada channel, Ushe Tv which is also a music and movie channel. Though the channel has no competition in the state, (the only popular satellite channel in the state is Sun‘s Udaya TV) the move to start another Kannada channel is seen as more of an defensive step. This is because the all the state needs is another Kannada channel and there will be a huge dent in the ad revenue distribution in the state. Udaya TV, incidentally grabs a huge chunk of almost Rs 600 million out of the total market of Rs 850 million. The other channel is the state owned DD-9.

This major offensive on Maran‘s part is unlike his characteristic behaviour which he has displayed in the past. But if you have indusrty heavyweights like Subhash Chandra and Ramoji Rao as your competitors it is definitely justified on Maran‘s part to go all out in trying to get the first move advantage.

After being off for close to a month in the US, Hindi entertainment channel Sony Entertainment Television is looking at making a comeback by next month. The channel inked an agreement with Echostar on 22 May in the US under which the DBS service will distribute it to Dish Network subscribers. Dish has close to 6 million subs in the US.

Echostar has made a minimum guarantee (MG) commitment to Sony team to bring it on to its platform. If subscribers cross a particular level, says SET COO Rajesh Pant, "we will get the MG plus a percentage of the subscriber fee. Now if these two put together cross a certain threshhold, we will get a higher percentage of the subscription fee."

The SET management is working out a plan to enable earlier subscribers on the EABC platform on DirectTV to migrate to the Echostar service. They have already invested in dishes and boxes for Direct TV. "We will give them incentives to migrate like free dishes and boxes or price-offs on both," says Pant.

SET, along with an EABC-produced channel Network Asia had close to 7,000 subscribers before it went off the air. Pant says packages are being worked out with $14.99 for a single channel; $24.99 for two channels. The other channels on the ethnic Dish platform are: B4U, Zee TV, Zee Gold, TV Asia.

Pant points out that SET is set to expand the US team so that it can push better in the US market. "We are looking at distribution and marketing and advertising professionals," he says. But the service will first have to get going and pacify Indian denizens who have been quite irritated by its untimely shutoff from the DirectTV platform.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee today dedicated the Insat-3B satellite which was launched earlier on March 22. The Prime Minister will dedicate the satellite in Bhubaneshwar during the launch of Jayanti Vidya Vikas Antariksh Upagarha Yojana - or Vidyavahini, the educational channel.
Insat-3B became partially functional with the launch of Vidyavahini channel. It will become fully operational within the next few weeks. Vidyavahi will be first used by Orissa for interactive tele-education in the rural areas.

The main purpose of the satellite is its usage for communication purposes by VSAT users. The DoT currently in the process of allocating the space for VSAT users on its transponders.

The three member high-level committee appointed for the restructuring of Prasar Bharati has finally submitted its report to the government after much delay. The committee consisting of Discovery Channel managing director Kiran Karnik, marketing guru Shunu Sen and Infosys chairman NR Narayan Murthy have suggested some radical reforms for Prasar Bharati to face the new economy.
According to the committee Prasar Bharati, with its available infrastructure should make the most of convergence opportunities. For this purpose, it was recommended that it should set up another division in addition to Doordarshan and All India Radio. The New Media division will look after the convergence opportunities, DTH, Interactive TV Internet space and Digital terrestrial broadcasting.

The panel also suggested that Doordarshan should tie up with MTNL to make foray into Internet services. The tie up could also spread to various other states in alliance with Department of Telecom Services.

The process for modernisiation already seems to have started with Doordarshan talking to various international media companies like BBC, CNN, AOL etc for delivery of content through the Net and also digital broadcasting. It is also believed to have struck a deal worth Rs 1 billion with Kerry Packer wherein it has sold airtime rights in the time slot of 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. on DD1.

It‘s May and as reported earlier in Indiantelevision.com‘s special report the Tara Marathi channel has gone on air. This means that there is one more major player in the Marathi regional channel arena other than Zee‘s Alpha Marathi, Prabhat and DD‘s Shayadri.
The Tara (Television Aimed at Regional Audience) group of regional channels is owned by Rathikant Basu promoted Broadcast Worldwide. The channel was officially launched yesterday - 19 May 2000.

The channel boasts of an interesting lineup of programming which will be as diverse as general entertainment, news and current affairs and educational programmes. It has tied up with BBC for educational programming software. The channel claims that it will have a balanced mix of movies and Marathi plays. It has also roped in celebrities like Sachin, Laxmikant Berde, Ashok Saraf and the likes to appear in various programmes on their channel.

Broadcast Worldwide has also initiated a a wide based research programmes for its channels (Read: Broadcast Worldwide initiates broad based research programme). The research which will be done with the help of IMRB is supposed to be first of the kind to be carried out by any channel in India. The main purpose of the research is to understand the viewers aspirations and demands.