When information technology minister Pramod Mahajan was given additional charge of the telecommunications ministry on 1 September in a cabinet reshuffle it was seen as a precursor to the two ministries being merged at some point.

Well the wait is over. Mahajan announced today morning that the "convergence" of the two ministries would go into effect by next week. Mahajan‘s statement also puts to rest speculation that the information & broadcasting ministry, headed by Sushma Swaraj, might also come under the purview of this new ministry. There was talk at one time that all three ministries might be merged.

Mahajan said the only issue remaining for the the merger to go into effect was for president RK Narayanan to sign it into law.

Radio City, the Star India-managed private FM radio station that has had a successful debut in Bangalore, plans to open its next station in Lucknow in December.

India‘s first private FM radio station launched its first station in Bangalore in July. According Sumantro Dutta, COO (Radio) Star India: "We are interested in Lucknow as it is one of the major cities of India and hence it has great potential. We would like to be present in this market." Queried on when he expected to launch services in Mumbai and Delhi, Dutta said: "We are still awaiting a few clearances from the government."

Star will conduct market research in Lucknow as it had earlier done in Bangalore in order to ascertain what the preferences of the people of Lucknow are. But Dutta said that at this point it was too early to say anything about the nature of content on the channel.

Regarding advertising potential Dutta said: "There has been a great response from advertisers (local & national) for Lucknow as this will open up opportunities for an extremely cost effective advertising medium and going by the popularity of Radio City in Bangalore, we are hoping the same will happen in Lucknow, thereby bringing a large sets of new audiences to 24-hours non-stop FM radio."

Dutta gave five reasons for the popularity of Radio City in Bangalore: programming & content, station packaging, the seamless nature of the station, the kind of RJ‘s the station had, and of course the obvious one - the sound reception quality at the listener end.

Questioned as to how Star was planning to expand advertising revenue regarding radio Dutta said: "We plan to grow the advertising pie by exploring unconventional means of advertising on radio & opening up opportunities for new categories of advertisers to use radio. That in itself is a huge task."

Hallmark, which claims a viewership base of 8.2 million in India, is pushing hard to become the channel that the whole family can enjoy. Hallmark is different from the other English movie channels Star Movies, HBO and Zee MGM because a lot of programming is aimed at children. Besides Hallmark‘s mini-series and movies are quite unique.

It‘s new show Star Trek Voyager will premier on 30 September at 8 p.m. The target audience is science fiction and action fans who like mystery, adventure and thrills and have no difficulty suspending their disbelief. In one of the episodes the Federation starship USS Voyager hunt down Maquis rebels, enters the dangerous space nebula known as the Badlands. Both ships are taken to the Delta Quadrant, which is 75,000 light-years from Federation space. Then at 9 p.m. you can enjoy the movie The Yearling about a 12-year-old boy who learns the meaning of life, shouldering responsibility through his relationship with an orphaned fawn.

The channel will spend Rs 10 million to promote and advertise this show as well as Sliders in India. Sliders is being pushed through the print medium, billboards and hoardings. The hoardings are quite mischievously misleading. At Borivali there is one which claims that one has reached Worli. The ads are quite zany and eccentric whether it describes objects in an inaccurate manner ‘The pyramid is a square‘, or misreporting an important news item of the past ‘Princess Diana survives car crash‘. Sliders deals with four people who travel through the time dimension zigging and zagging so much that a time comes when they are not sure what is real anymore. Advertising major Leo Burnett‘s campaign tempts viewers with a teaser "What is your reality?"

As far as movies are concerned the channel this month has been showing successful adaptations of classic novels under the heading From Page to Screen. Tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. the channel is showing the ‘Infinite Worlds of HG Wells". It is an interesting fictionalised account of author HG Wells and how he was inspired to write novels like ‘The Time Machine‘.

The channel also harbours ambitious desires of rising to the next level by extending the concept of the fairy tale to adult audiences. Next month on the 27th and 28th at 9 p.m, Storybook scandals will see the channel present two classic fairy tales where the end is not soppy and feel good. The first tale is the Grimm Brothers Snow White. It has state-of-the-art special effects not seen in previous versions. Starring Oscar nominated Brit Miranda Richardson (Tom And Viv) the wicked queen tries to kill Snow White and succeeds inspite of the best attempts of the seven Dwarfs to save the heroine.

The second is Prince Charming where the Prince, due to a curse becomes a frog. He can only change back is if he is kissed by a woman. This happens 500 years later in Manhattan but when he finds her he falls for another woman. Luck could run out as far as he is concerned.

Following close on the heels of its tie-up with the RPG-owned HMV Saregama, Etc has linked up a deal with Sony Music for joint marketing of selected albums.

The first joint venture called Jagratan is in a twin cassette album format and will comprise religious Jagrata bhajans and geets (devotional songs) rendered by the nightingale of Indian music Lata Mangeshkar exclusively for this album. The music is by Surendra Kohli and lyrics are by Balbir Nirdosh.

The album has been produced jointly by Sony, etc and Dainik Jagran - the largest circulated Hindi language newspaper in north India.

With the Navratras festival (Gujarati festival of nine nights of dancing and merriment) around the corner, this exercise is actually a tactical promotion of sorts. This tie-up has come about as etc‘s morning band based on religion, is very strong and has a very good rapport with viewers.

The selling and production will be handled by Sony online distribution and etc will be carrying the online promos, with revenue being shared by both etc and Sony.