B4U Network Television yesterday asserted that it was not on the lookout to divest stake while clarifying that cornered bull Ketan Parekh held only 5 per cent in the company.

"We are open to alliances which bring in fresh investments but no more than that," B4U Network Television CEO Ravi Gupta said while responding to queries about market rumours that the channel was facing financial difficulties and was under pressure to raise resources.

"Most alliances that we have been considering in recent times have been for joint venture operations and not for offloading stake," Gupta said, while adding that his company had not closed out the possibility of offloading stake. Gupta was, however, at pains to point out that in that case there would have to be some essential synergies involved which qualitatively added value to the organisation in terms of contacts and experience rather than being purely an infusion of funds.

On the status of the legal notice B4U had issued to Zee Telefilms on 11 April seeking an explanation from the Subhash Chandra promoted company regarding claims that it had acquired a 15 per cent stake in B4U, Gupta said Zee‘s response had been unsatisfactory.

Gupta said his legal department planned to seek further clarifications following the recent statements made Chandra that investment companies of the Essel Group (part of the Zee Group) had bought a stake in B4U for Rs 460 million through Parekh.

According to Zee, investment companies from the Essel Group had borrowed Rs 2,200 million from Zee Telefilms and placed it with Parekh who in turn used the money to buy stakes in various media firms, among them being B4U and AB Corp promoted by filmstar Amitabh Bachchan (28.5 per cent for Rs 750 million), as part of a long term strategic initiative.

Gupta said Parekh‘s holding in B4U had never crossed 5 per cent. The main shareholding remained with the promoters Kishore Lulla, Lakshmi Mittal and Gokul Bimani, Gupta said, but refused to disclose how much stake the three held.

Gupta said that B4U had reached strategic arrangements with a number of firms, including Sony in the United Kingdom and national broadcaster Doordarshan, which were beneficial to both sides to elucidate the kind of tie-ups that would interest him.

HFCL-Nine Broadcasting has denied reports that it had defaulted on payments to national broadcaster Doordarshan and said all its dues had been cleared.

The clarification came in the wake of reports yesterday that HFCL-Nine had defaulted on four instalments of payments totalling Rs 240 million over an eight-week period.

As per the contractual agreement, HFCL-Nine has to pay DD Rs 60 million a fortnight for its three-hour slot between 7 pm and 10 pm on DD Metro. HFCL-Nine had last year secured the rights to supply programming for the prime time slot for Rs 1,210 million.

Speaking exclusively to indiantelevision.com (read interview), HFCL-Nine CEO Ravina Raj Kohli said: "The facts are not correct. Technically, there were only three defaults - or rather delays. We had

not paid up because we were waiting and watching. We had submitted a proposal and were discussing extension of the current contract with DD. We paid up finally, earlier this week. We had the money."

HFCL-Nine is a 51:49 per cent joint venture between Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd promoted by Vinay Malloo and Channel Nine promoted by Australian media magnate Kerry Packer‘s Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd.

HFCL-Nine has been under the spotlight in recent times because of its indirect association with cornered bull operator Ketan Parekh who has been accused of massive fraud on the stock markets and is presently in custody. Parekh, Malloo and Packer are partners in KVP Ventures, a venture capital fund set up for investments in the convergence sectors.

After a gap that has spanned some years, Mudra Videotec is putting in place plans to re-enter television software and is looking to have a business plan ready within a month.

Kaushik Roy, Mudra VideoTech CEO, said yesterday his company would be producing television software in several languages but would be working in collaboration with production houses. Mudra will be focussing on intellectual properties (IPs) and marketing and sales while leaving the facilities aspect to its partners. By facilities he meant studios, production hardware, etc, Roy said.

Mudra was in the process of recruiting people strong in programming and ad sales to man their offices in Calcutta, Chennai, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad, Goyal said. It has already recruited staff in Mumbai. The setting up of teams in different cities was because there was a lot of scope in regional language channels, Roy said.

Asked what skills Mudra brought to the table in any collaboration considering it had been out of Television for a number of years, Goyal said there were essentially three factors which made an alliance with his company attractive: strengths in marketing and ad sales, ideas and concept generation and the brand Mudra which was attractive in itself.

Within a month the whole set-up will be in place and then we can go ahead, Goyal said when asked how long it would take to start operations.

Gregg Creevey has been appointed senior vice-president, network distribution and content sales for Turner International Asia Pacific.

In his new position, Creevey will be responsible for managing network distribution, plus interactive and wireless content sales activities on behalf of CNN International, Cartoon Network and TCM in Australia, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, North Asia, the Pacific Islands and Southeast Asia, a company release says.

He and his team will also participate in the sales of all CNN broadcast services, including CNN excerpts, feature programming and International Newsource, to broadcasters in the Asia Pacific.

Creevey who was formerly vice-president for Turner‘s Network Distribution in Asia, joined the company in 1988 in London. He moved to Asia in 1994 and looked after distribution in Sydney, then moved to Turner‘s offices in Singapore. He is now based in the AOL Time Warner Asia Pacific headquarters in Hong Kong.