Prakash Jain, promoter of the Prabhat and Suprabhat regional language channels, yesterday categorically denied that he was scouting for buyers for the two channels.

While scotching market rumours that his Marathi channel Prabhat and Kannada channel Suprabhhat were on the selling block, Jain however, said he was open to alliances which would bring in fresh investments.

Jain made his comments in response to rumours circulating that sale talks with the Hindujas, owners of In Cable and later with industrialist VM Jog of Jog Constructions, had fallen through.

The whole Zee network is going pay from May, group corporate affairs head RK Singh confirmed today, adding that the rollout of set top boxes for Zee TV has already begun.

Singh said the entire Zee network, including the four regional language Alpha channels and Nickelodeon, would be included in the package which would cost between Rs 20 and 30.

While Singh would not give an exact figure on the price, a Mumbai-based cable operator revealed that Zee was selling their bouquet at RS 25 and the cost of the set top box for Zee TV was RS 14,000.

Singh wouldn‘t reveal when the switchover to pay would take place but didn‘t exclude the possibility of it going through some time in the middle of May.

Cable operators would be offered a la carte as well as network rates, Singh says.

The Zee Network includes, Zee TV, Zee News, Zee Cinema, Zee MGM, Zee English and Zee Music. The Alpha channels are Marathi, Punjabi, Gujarati and Bengali. Zee distributes Nickelodeon in India and hosts two one hour programming slots for the children‘s channel, mornings and evenings, on Zee TV.

AXN TV, the action channel from Sony Entertainment Television, has rolled out plans for the next year which will see the channel concentrating on developing five areas of on-screen entertainment - action series, adventure, sports, animation and movies.

"The coming months will see a lot of action on this front," promises Shantonu Aditya, Senior vice president, Distribution and franchise channels, SET. This will involve ground events, on air promotions as well as PR exercises.

The Eco Challenge recently launched on AXN is a part of the effort to get more public involvement in activities associated with the channel, says Aditya.

Eco Challenge is a 350-mile long endurance course which has to be completed in 10 days with teams of four taking on the elements with no mechanical equipment whatsoever. The stipulation being that each team has to have at least one woman and all team members have to finish the course together.

Queried whether there were any plans for organising reality TV series similar to the popular Survivor series abroad, Aditya replied in the negative. He, however, said AXN might put together a team from India that would be sent abroad to participate.

At present the only Indian channel going ahead with plans for a similar programme is Zee TV which is putting together POW, which will have "prisoners" trying to escape from a prisoner of war camp. It has been modeled on the successful "Jailbreak" which aired on British television last year.