Close on the heels of winning the Ground Breaker award as the top National Programmer by US-based trade publication Multichannel News International, Zee Telefilms has one more award in its kitty. Zee TV has won the coveted EMMA Award in the United Kingdom.
While Zee won the Ground Breaker award as it had "emerged as India‘s media powerhouse with transponders on satellites whose footprints cover the globe, it won the EMMA awards for the best digital/cable channel in the United Kingdom.

The winner for the award is chosen based on viewers response through ‘phone in and internet‘. Zee TV is watched in more than 1,70,000 South Asian households in UK and Europe and is fast increasing its viewership through its innovative and interactive programming.

The event which marks the coming together of all the industry people for latest developments in the broadcasting world and also for networking with peers is here. Broadcast Asia will be held from 5 June to 8 June in Singapore.

The conference begins on 5 June with the opening session on Visualising MPEG Tutorial conducted by Dr Michale Isnardi of Sarnoff Research Corporation.

6 June will see parallel sessions on Digital experience and Multimedia in the year 2000 being held simultaneously. The session on Multimedia in the Year 2000 will be presented by British Kinematograph Sound and Television Society (BKSTS).

7 June will have two parallel sessions throughout the day. One session will see parallel session on Digital Delivery and Audio and Text. The second parallel session will deal with Television & Multimedia and Delivery Networks - Vehicles.

The final day, 8 June will continue with 2 parallel sessions in throughout the day. The first session will be on Production and TV-Internet-TV. The final session will deal with Studio Technology and Business Opportunities. This will be followed by a closing debate.

For more details about the show visit www.broadcast-asia.com.

In what is seen as a move to avoid any complications which may arise due to ‘restrictions on cross media holdings‘, Zee Telefilms announced that it was divesting its stake from Zee Publishing Ltd.
As a result Zee Publishing Ltd will no more be a part of Zee Telefilms Ltd but will be privately owned by Subhash Chandra and his family and also Deepak Shourie who is also a CEO in Zee Telefilms.

ZPL will retain its name as of now but can change it if it wants in the future. Also this restructuring move would mean that ZPL will be more focused in its plans can now raise its own funding as an separate entity. This move will also possibly keep the critics of Zee Telefilms, who have doubts about Zee‘s publishing venture, quiet.

The new company will continue to publish its Zee Premier and TV World magazines.

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.