The latest satellite in the PanAmSat (PAS) series, the PAS-10, which will cover several countries in the Indian Ocean area, including India, was launched from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan on Tuesday at 0111 GMT, according to the Interfax news agency.

The satellite was launched aboard a Russian Proton rocket and successfully brought into orbit some 228 kilometres above Earth at 0121 GMT, space officials said. PAS-10, the sixth Boeing-built satellite delivered to PanAmSat in the last 17 months, will provide international services from its orbital position of 68.5 degrees East longitude.

An artist‘s impression of the PAS-4

The launch is of significance to Indian broadcasters because customers beaming off PAS-4 will now be shifted to the PAS-10 satellite, a company representative says. PAS-4 has been running on a back-up processor since 1999 after the onboard battery failed and the main satellite control processor packed up.

Among the channels which are currently on PAS-4 are: National broadcaster Doordarshan (DD News; DD Sports; DD1, DD International), B4U, ESPN Asia, MTV India, Nickelodeon, HBO, CNN, BBC World, Cartoon Network, TCM, Discovery, Animal Planet, UTN and the religious channel Maharishi Veda Vision.

The PAS-10 is a Boeing 601HP satellite which was ordered September 1999. The 9-600-watt satellite will provide international services to Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe from its orbital position of 68.5 degrees East longitude. It has 48 transponders on board, 24 in Ku-band and 24 in C-band and has a design life of at least 15 years.

PAS-10 is intended to serve in the development of more advanced broadcast, high-speed data and Internet services across Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

(Picture courtesy Panamsat)

SABe TV, promoted by the Adhikari brothers, is planning a major programming push timed to kick off 14 May. Film heroine Karisma Kapoor will be promoting the Hindi entertainment channel as its brand ambassador.

SABe TV, which claims it holds the number four spot in the Hindi channel stakes after Star Plus, Zee TV and Sony Entertainment Television, is hoping its new initiative will raise a serious challenge to the Big Three.

And how is it going about it? Appointment viewing is what all the channels are looking for and SABe TV hopes to drive home (a car is just one of the prizes to be won) to the viewer that there are rewards in tuning in to the channel. To add to this, there are also a number of new shows that the channel is introducing.

Karisma Kapoor has been the Brand Ambassador for SABe TV

According to Markand Adhikari, vice-chairman and managing director Sri Adhikari Brothers Televison Network Ltd, SABe TV is targeting the prime band between 7:30 PM and 9 PM Monday through to Friday. Labelled Karisma Kapoor‘s Sab Sham Inam Aapke Naam and starting 14 May, Monday, viewers from 15 major cities in the Hindi speaking belt will be able to participate by responding through phone calls, the internet or through write-ins.

Questions relating to the programmes on air will be asked at the end of each show to which viewers will have to send in their answers. The fix is that the questions will relate to what transpired during the episode that just aired and will not be general questions. Therefore to win anything participants will have to watch the programmes in full.

A month of regular watching will get the viewers familiar enough with the plot lines of the shows on air to make them want to continue watching them is the premise SABe TV appears to be working on.

There are a whole host of prizes to be won during the promotion. The bumper prize will be an apartment in Mumbai. The other big prizes include a luxury car, an all expenses paid foreign trip for two families and a diamond set. Raj Travels is sponsoring the trips and the diamonds are from Sparkle. Adhikari says talks are still on for a sponsor for the apartment as well as the car but whether it comes through or not these prizes will definitely be handed over to the winners.

Apart from the main prizes, other prizes include a week‘s stay at the Holiday Inn in Goa, and various home appliances which will be given away on a daily basis during the on air event period which is 14 May to 10 June.

Keeping with the theme of the more you watch the more you win, it will be the participants with the maximum number of correct entries who will be in line to take home the big prize, Adhikari points out.

NEW PROGRAMMES: A drama serial Dulhan produced by Rakhee Tandon and directed by Ravi Kemu will go on air from 17 May slotted at 8:30 PM every Thursday. Dulhan is about a contractual marriage and raises critical questions about the institution of marriage, according to a company release.

Whole new episodes of the fantasy and costume drama Alif Laila, based on the Arabian Nights, will go on air from 21 May at 7:30 PM and will be telecast Monday to Friday. Sagar Arts have been commissioned to produce 786 new episodes, which have never been shown before on any television network.

Two mega historicals - Satyavadi Raja Harishchandra and Sati Savitri have already started on SabeTV from 6 May airing every Sunday between 11 am and 12 noon.

To round of the list, the channel plans to introduce two new daily dramas by the end of June. It is also in the middle of conceptualising a new genre of programmes (Adhikari said he didn‘t want to reveal anything about what it involved at the moment) which will be launched some time in the second half of the year.

SABe TV‘s effort is to increase viewer recognition of what the channel has to offer. And what effect the new programming push will have on TRPs will be closely watched.

A study done by online media exchange exchange4media.com and tomtommed by it in the press has been rubbished by Star India. The study had claimed that a large chunk of advertising inventory on satellite channels goes underutilised.
Says Star India executive vice-president Raj Nayak: "There are tremendous anomalies in the study. Only a channel can know what inventories it has. Analysis of data can tell you how much inventory is utilised and not under-utilised. Each channel has a different way of dealing with commercial time. We have a strict limitation of taking on only 10 minutes commercials for an hour of telecast. (This is a statutory requirement as per the Hong Kong government‘s broadcasting code. Star is uplinked from Hong Kong) DD takes maybe 20 minutes, and even more - there is no limit with DD. Even Zee TV took on so much advertising for Miss World that they spread it over five and a half hours. Ditto with Sony. So how can any one tell for sure?"

The exchange4media study, reportedly based on the Media Monitoring Report by Consumer Opinion and Future Trends (COFT) for a four-week period in September 2000, had claimed that etc channel had utilised its inventory to the maximum at about 90 per cent as compared to 41 other television channels beaming on prime time between 7 and 11 PM

The other channels which have been analysed include: Sony at 77 per cent, DD Metro and Zee News at 75 per cent, Set Max and Zee TV at 73 per cent, Raj TV at 71 per cent, Asianet and Zee Cinema at 70 per cent, Alpha Marathi at 68 per cent, Sun TV 67 per cent, CNBC at 66 per cent and Star Plus at 63 per cent.

Additionally, the survey had said that inventory utilisation suffered more in the afternoon band between 12 noon and 4:30 pm, with DD National ranking as the best at 76 per cent, followed by Zee TV at 73 per cent, CNBC at 66 per cent and Sony at 63 per cent.

Nayak questions how any analysis can be done on seven-month-old data in a dynamic industry such as television where changes are taking place every second. "It‘s a piece of rubbish," says a Star India source.

Officials from exchange4media.com were not available for comment as this story was being uploaded. A reaction is awaited.

Confirming what was already known in trade circles, the board of directors of Balaji Telefilms Ltd and Nine Network Entertainment India Private Ltd (a wholly-owned subsidiary of HFCL Nine Broadcasting), in their respective board meetings held today, announced they have decided not to proceed with the merger of the two companies.

Both Balaji Telefilms and Nine Network feel it is in their respective commercial interests not to proceed with the merger at this stage as the synergies that were anticipated to arise from the proposed merger are no longer seen to exist, a press release issued jointly said.

HFCL Nine Broadcasting India Ltd wishes to focus for the time being on its existing broadcasting activities rather than the acquisition of interests in content production companies, a company release said.

Both Balaji and HFCL Nine look forward to continuing their existing relationships, the release concludes.

As per the deal announced last November between the two parties, Balaji Telefilms was to acquire Nine Entertainment India for Rs 340 million under a swap ratio where 65 shares of Balaji would be swapped for 200 shares of HFCL Nine. Post-acquisition, HFCL Nine was to hold 20 per cent equity in Balaji Telefilms.

Balaji-HFCL Nine merger off?
Balaji board to meet on merger with HFCL Nine tomorrow