Two months into its relaunch campaign, Zee TV has shifted around three of its shows in an effort to increase their audience share.

Game show Nilaamghar, hosted by the irrepressible Shekhar Suman, has been shifted from the weekend (Saturday-Sunday 7:00 PM) to a weekly slot - Tuesday-Wednesday 10:00 PM, with effect from 16 October.

Sarhadein has been pushed back from the 11 PM slot on Mondays to Wednesdays, to 10:45 PM on the same days. The change came into effect from 15 October.

Interestingly, the much hyped interactive show, Aap Jo Bole Haan To Haan?Aap JO Bole Na To NA has been cut down from four days a week to two days. Instead of being telecast from Sunday to Wednesday at 10:00 PM, it is now being beamed at the same time, but only on Sundays and Mondays, from 14 October.

Says Zee TV director (marketing) Partha Sinha: "Some changes have been made based on viewer feedback. Eleven PM was considered too late for Sarhadein, hence we moved it back to 10:45 PM" Sinha points out that the network was lining up specials in order to cash in on the Diwali season. "These are at the finalisation stage," he says. "We are responding to changes at the ground level."

He also sought to dispel any notions that the network was on the back foot. Says Sinha: "Despite the media‘s onslaught on Zee Telefilms‘ falling marketshare, the facts are that Zee News has emerged as the numero uno channel in Mumbai. Additionally, Kohi Apna Sa currently occupies the no 12 position as per current ratings. Choti Maa Ek Anokha Bandhan is going along steadily and given another six to eight weeks it should establish itself. Both Nilaamghar and Aap JO Bole?, which are finding increasing audiences should also do well. These are some of the good shows and we expect good results from them."

That some of its new shows will gain cachet with audiences given time is a tautology and is something that even indiantelevision.com has been advocating for quite some time now.

And whatever may be Sinha‘s views on the matter, the channel‘s dogged persistence with flop interactive show Aap JO Bhole? and its atrocious host Suhel Seth continues to surprise the industry, including all of us at indiantelevision.com. Maybe there‘s something here that we are all missing.

ESPN Star Sports, India‘s leading sports broadcaster, announced yesterday the acquisition of exclusive telecast rights for the Champions Trophy tournament to be played in Sharjah. Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe will participate in the triangular tournament beginning on October 26.

The deal, struck between Sharjah Cricket Club LLC and ESPN STAR Sports (ESS), firmly establishes ESS as the leading sports broadcaster in India with top quality cricket coverage from around the world.

With this acquisition, ESS has a virtual lock on international cricket played outside India. The exception being cricket played in Sri Lanka. Sony Entertainment‘s MAX channel, which is also trying to build a cricket property, will be telecasting the two Test matches between Sri Lanka and West Indies (14-18 November and 22-26 November). For Max the loss of Sharjah rights puts a further dent to its hopes of being considered a serious player in the cricket arena. MAX was launched as a channel two years ago (8 October) with the telecast of the Sharjah tourney and has held the telecast rights till April this year.

As for ESPN Star Sports, apart from the ongoing India-South Africa-Kenya Triangular Series, the upcoming fixtures include the Sharjah triangular one-day series, comprising Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe, the India vs South Africa test series, the New Zealand, South Africa tour of Australia.

Manu Sawhney, managing director of ESPN Software India said: "With the acquisition of Champions Trophy rights, ESPN STAR Sports will showcase more than 66 days of cricket (21 ODIs, 9 Tests) with over 528 hours live and exclusive coverage of international cricket. This festive season, cricket fans across the country will enjoy back-to-back, non-stop cricket involving nine test-playing countries."

"The acquisition of Sharjah cricket rights will also help bring the best of international cricket at prime television viewing time. The contract further demonstrates our commitment to cricket which remains unrivalled in the Indian market. We look forward to working closely with Sharjah Cricket Club LLC to bring quality international cricket LIVE to Indian viewers," added Sawhney.

The line-up for Champions trophy is as follows:

Friday 26th October - Sri Lanka vs. Zimbabwe (ESPN)
Saturday 27th October - Pakistan vs. Sri Lanka (STAR Sports)
Sunday 28th October - Pakistan vs. Zimbabwe (STAR Sports)
Tuesday 30th October - Sri Lanka vs. Zimbabwe (STAR Sports)
Wednesday 31st Oct - Pakistan vs. Zimbabwe (STAR Sports)
Friday 2nd November - Pakistan vs. Sri Lanka (STAR Sports)
Sunday 4th November - Final (STAR Sports)

First Session - 1600-1930 hrs
Second Session - 2015-2345 hrs

It was media baron Subhash Chandra‘s pet project to set up a channel advocating ancient Indian medicine, holistic healing, culture, meditation etc under the Organic or Chakra brand.

The channel‘s main audience would be in Europe, America, South Africa, Australia, and some south east Asian nations. The channel would be encrypted and carried on both cable TV and DTH systems as a subscription service and was in the planning stages for more than two years. As recently as June, Chandra was heard cheerleading Chakra employees that they could do pull it off.

No more. Last month, the channel was given a quiet burial, in an unreported move, by, sources indicate, Zee Telefilms broadcasting CEO Sandeep Goyal. Apparently, Goyal took the decision to cut off the oxygen to the channel with the transfer of all broadcasting responsibilities to him. Some 10 employees of Chakra have since reportedly departed; a skeleton staff of three or four employees has been left.

The channel was reportedly talked of as a Rs 200 million project within Zee, but was actually sanctioned with only RS 80 million in funds, of which only RS 30 million was disbursed. Some 150 hours of holistic healing programming were created, with another 100 hours slated to be wrapped up and canned very soon.

With the money situation tight, Goyal reportedly decided to pull the plug on Chakra, and instead consolidate the existing businesses. He has, it is believed, told the programme syndication team within Zee TV to sell the rights to the Chakra shows, which have been produced, to anyone interested in buying them, whatever be the sticker price. Insiders claim it would be better if Zee TV would hold on to the programmes as they have plenty of shelf life and could be used later.

In recent times, other new forays such as the Urdu channel UTN have been handed out the same treatment. In fact, Zee Telefilms‘ alleged decision not to invest in UTN led to its closure just a month or so ago.

All this at a time, when the company is persisting with an extremely myopic, high-on-cost but very low-on-strategy marketing campaign promoting its gaggle of new shows on mother channel Zee TV. The campaign uses a frail girl mascot Khushi to promote not only Zee TV but also 26 new shows. Basic marketing principles say that it is okay to use an umbrella brand to promote a product range, but sub-brands have to be promoted independently. Analysts have for long been demanding that the company drop its shotgun marketing approach and promote each programme independently. But to no avail. Some RS 120 million has been pumped behind it, which has resulted in just a handful of shows emerging as audience favourites. Among these: Kohi Apna Sa, Nilaamghar, Sarahadein, Baazi Kiski.

Thankfully, the company is doing some rejigging of its programming schedule as far as some of the popular new shows are concerned. It‘s over to Messrs Chandra, Goyal and marketing head Partha Sinha to pull out Zee Telefilms and Zee TV from the quicksand of sinking ratings, high costs, and a plunging share price, even as rival Star Plus continues to make gains with viewers.