Prannoy Roy‘s New Delhi Television appears to have finalised plans for life after Star News. And it is not on the Zee CNN bandwagon that Roy will be pitching his tent.

Industry sources say that on 1 April 2003 (a day after NDTV‘s content deal with Star ends), Roy will be simultaneously launching two channels - one Hindi and one English.

Roy already has an uplinking licence and has acquired a teleport through which he will uplink the two channels, industry sources say.

More recent rumours however, have centred around the possibility that Roy might enter into a deal with Sony Entertainment Television. And the last word may yet not have been said on this particular piece of conjecture as there is still a distribution arrangement that NDTV has to put in place. And it would certainly simplify matters for Roy if he has a strong platform to push his channels. Especially considering the fact that preparations are reportedly on in full swing at the India Today Group to launch an English sister channel for leading Hindi news channel Aaj Tak by the year-end.

As far as the news management team is concerned Star News anchors Rajdeep Sardesai, Sonia Verma and Arnab Goswami have been slotted in for key positions, sources say. Sardesai is slated to be managing editor, Verma executive editor and Goswami news editor, the sources aver.

If the reports about the news management team are true, it may well be a move to pre-empt any attempts by rivals to poach key personnel. There looks like being a lot of that in the coming months what with all the news channels that are in various stages of development.

Cartoon Network‘s Samurai Jack has been voted the World‘s Best TV Series at the International Animated Film Festival. The animation festival in France screens 500 animated films from 33 countries with 5500 professional visitors and 380 journalists covering the events.

Samurai Jack was created by Genndy Tartakovsky, the talent behind Dexter‘s Laboratory and producer/director of The Powerpuff Girls. Samurai Jack has been a major rating success for Cartoon Network‘s channels around the world and is now in production as a major live action feature film.

Combining action, adventure, comedy and great character interaction, this is a unique tale of mental wit, Samurai strength and the fight of good over evil and stylistically is unlike any other animated show on television.

Cartoon Network, the 24 hour, seven day a week, all-animation channel is available on localised feeds in nine languages on digital and analogue satellite, cable and DTT in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. It is operated by Turner Broadcasting System Europe Limited, an AOL Time Warner Company.

There are plans to make All India Radio available on cable networks as a satellite radio feed.

The proposal is to be discussed by the Prasar Bharati board next month, Prasar Bharati officials told Indiantelevision.com today. Queried as to what AIR hoped to get out of this initiative, the officials said Prasar Bharati was looking at it as a possible additional source of revenues.

News that AIR plans such an initiative comes only a day after BBC World Service formally announced a deal in Mumbai with Hinduja Group MSO INCableNet to carry radio programmes on the network.

Well, the news and current affairs (N&CA) genre of programming space is certainly hotting up for action.

Forget Sahara readying itself to have N&CA programming. Don‘t even think Star News under full control of the Rupert Murdoch-controlled Star Group Ltd post March 2003 or Videocon‘s proposed news channel will be the last word in news.

" And if viewership figures are any indication, then Prasar Bharati board has something to cheer about.

As per a recent presentation made by TAM to Prasar Bharati officials, the majority of people in even cable and satellite homes still watch news on DD.

According to TAM data, culled from 27 cities for the week ended 25 May, the daily evening news hour (2000-2100 hrs) on DD National had a share of 90 per cent among all news channels in all TV homes and 52 per cent share in C&S homes. Likewise, the weekday‘s morning news hour (0700-0800 hrs) on DD national commanded 89 per cent share in all homes and had 52 per cent share in C&S homes among all news channels.

"This indicates if we can get our act together properly, we can cash in on the credibility of news on DD and have a dedicated news channel," the Corporation official added.

Learning from the "mistakes of the past", this time round DD News will give "more emphasis on generating N&CA programming in-house" instead of doling out a bulk of current affairs fare to influential media people as was the case on the erstwhile DD News.

Generating N&CA programming in-house will have a financial upside for Prasar Bharati too: the outflow of funds can be arrested. During its 18-odd-month existence, DD News had gobbled up investments to the tune of approximately Rs 1,520 million. "If the board gives its approval to DD News, this time round we can lower the outflow (of funds)," the official said.

Meanwhile, Prasar Bharati, a la private channels, also "presented" the new recruits to the capital‘s journos at a party hosted yesterday at the India International Center. The recruits have been drawn from organisations like Sahara TV, Zee TV, ANI and the Bangalore-based TMG