B4U Entertainment on Wednesday confirmed that it was exploring various avenues of entering direct-to-home (DTH) television but denied reports that the international partners had already been finalised.

"We are working towards it (DTH) but nothing has been decided as of now," B4U Entertainment CEO Ravi Gupta said. "We are only in the initial stages of talks with a possible parter," he added. He was referring to a press report that EuropeStar (a satellite company) and Mindport (provider of conditional access technology) were each to take 20 per cent stakes along with B4U for the project. The report also said talks were on to rope in a leading set top box manufacturer for the project as the fourth partner could provide finance if not technology.

Queried about the possibility of teaming up with Doordarshan for an alliance, Gupta said: "Everybody is talking to possible partners and DD is just one of them."

As part of CNN‘s restructuring exercise, Ian Macintosh and Tony Maddox have been appointed as senior vice-presidents for the Hong Kong and London regions respectively.

Macintosh will spearhead the integration of CNN‘s journalistic activities on all platforms in the Asia Pacific, developing a fully integrated regional newsgathering and production centre in Hong Kong, and providing network programming and on-line production for CNN‘s 34 television, radio and new media services worldwide. Additionally, Hong Kong will operate as the logistical and planning centre for the eight CNN bureaus located in Asia.

Maddox will be similarly responsible for driving through the restructuring in Europe, Middle East and Africa from CNN‘s regional hub in London.

Sony Entertainment Television and the Rajan Raheja-owned Hathway Cable & Datacom have reached agreement on a dispute that had developed over unpaid dues as well the declared connectivity of its pay channel service of SetMax, AXN and CNBC.

The channels, which were off air since 2 January on the Hathway feed, began beaming again on Monday in Mumbai, Pune and Nashik - the areas under dispute. According to Sony, the dues outstanding were Rs 1.5 million for the period from June 2000.

Officials in Sony and Hathway were tightlipped as to nitty gritty of what had been agreed upon vis-a-vis the declared paid connectivity of the three channels. But it is believed that Sony had to scale back its demand of a threefold increase in the declared connectivity of paid subscribers from November 2000.

According to cable industry sources, Hathway earlier had a declared paid connectivity of around 10,000 for SetMax in Mumbai, 20,000 for CNBC, and 40,000 for AXN.