Viewers, used to seeing reruns of popular soaps on DD Metro for the last six months, are likely to get a dose of fresh programming shortly.
Prasar Bharati has invited proposals from television and film producers for DD Metro under the sponsored category. The programmes to be allotted span all categories, including the prime time, mid prime time and non prime time slots, according to an advertisement released by the pubcaster in a daily on Friday. This is the second time DD is inviting programme proposals from independent producers after it broke up with Channel Nine Gold in September 2001. That was the last time Prasar Bharati approached independent producers for proposals.

The details regarding the slots, genres of programmes, revised telecast fees and admissibility of FCT are to be collected from local DD kendras in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Jalandhar as also at Doordarshan Bhavan in New Delhi.

The proposals are to be submitted accompanied by the pilot episodes at the Facilitation Counter, Directorate General, Doordarshan, Doordarshan Bhavan, Copernicus Marg, New Delhi.

The deadline for applications is 5 pm on 22 March 2002.

The Indian Space Research Organisation‘s (Isro) latest multi-purpose geostationary satellite, Insat 3C, was declared operational today, providing a boost to the satellite communication capabilities of India.

Isro satellite centre director Dr PS Goel was quoted as telling reporters that the users were utilising the payloads and already three transponders had been handed over to them.

The Isro-built spacecraft had 24 normal C-band transponders, six extended C-band transponders, two S-band broadcast satellite transponders and a mobile satellite service transponder.

Goel ruled out leasing transponders to foreign organisations like Intelsat and added that there is already a large commitment from Indian users.

The Insat-3C and Insat-3A, planned to be launched later this year, are targeted at domestic users whereas Insat-3C was mainly built for India coverage.

He said the Isro would soon discuss with Arianespace to fix a launch date for Insat-3A.

Indicating that Isro might embark on building satellites for other countries after the completion of the Insat-3E project, Dr Goel said the Department of Space‘s marketing agency had already initiated talks with some in this regard.

All the systems of Insat-3C have been performing as per predictions. The satellite has 488 kg fuel left on board which will be sufficient for its design life of 12 years. The satellite is intended to continue the services of Insat-2DT and Insat-2C which are nearing the end of their life besides improving and augmenting the Insat system capacity.

Insat 3C geostationary at 74 East
Insat-3C in geostationary orbit, solar arrays deployed
Isro on a high as Insat-3C put in successful orbit

The open offer was ultimately higher than the Rs 70 million that Zee Telefilms had earlier declared it would be shelling out for a further stake in ETC Networks. Rs 73.75 million to be more accurate.

Zee Telefilms today announced its open offer to acquire 20 per cent equity stake of ETC Networks at Rs 31.52 per share. The open share offer to acquire up to 2,339,900 fully paid up shares for Rs 10 each is being managed by SSKI Corporate Finance.

Zee had earlier acquired 5,660,795 equity shares representing 48.32 per cent of the issued subscribed share capital of ETC Networks Ltd for a total consideration of Rs 178.4 million - at around Rs 31 per share. The specified date for the transaction to be completed is 25 February.

With this announcement, Zee is now looking at acquiring a whopping 68.32 per cent stake in ETC.

Addressability. Everyone wants it but no one seems to know how it is to be instituted.

That about summed up the last session of the day as the two-day conference on "The Business of Entertainment" kicked off in Mumbai today.

But as at the Enter Media 2001 conference held in August last year (then as now organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry), where addressability was at the core of discussions at the session on television and broadcasting, this time round as well there was no fresh ground made at the discussion on "The Future of Electronic Media".

All the panelists seemed to agree that one way the ongoing friction between MSOs and broadcasters could be resolved was for conditional access systems to come into play. How and when had no ready answer though.

There were other issues that were covered by the panelists Ashok Mansukhani, executive V-P, corporate services, HTMT (speaking for the cable industry), Ravi Gupta, CEO, B4U Worldwide, and Rajat Jain, executive V-P, SET MAX. They just seemed to get overshadowed a bit.

Mansukhani spent the largest time on the subject. But then that may have been linked to the ongoing stand-off between ESPN Star Sports and InCable Net over increased subscriber rates and the fact that ESPN Software managing director Manu Sawhney was initially pencilled in as one of the speakers. That he did not make it deflated the tenor of the discussions somewhat.

According to Mansukhani, the government was dragging its feet on two crucial issues. As he sees it, there is no political will to get in either conditional access or to push through the convergence bill.

One way to accelerate the move to an the addressable regime was for the government to make available set top boxes at an affordable cost, Mansukhani said. As an immediate measure the 68 per cent duty on the import of set tops needed to be suspended for at least the next three years, Mansukhani said.

Gupta however countered that even in a zero duty scenario this would still come in at a considerable cost. And even if costs could be managed the whole process would take a considerable time.

Bhuvan Lall, executive director, Indian Broadcast Foundation, who chaired the session, put some perspective on the subject when he said that the total worldwide manufacture of set tops in a year was 12 million. Compare that to the declared cable & satellite TV population of 39 million that has to be seeded.

Dinyar Contractor, editor and publisher of trade magazine Satellite & Cable TV raised a point that the cost per set top would come to around around Rs 5,000. Assuming a C&S TV population of about 40 million at the current numbers, the total cost works out to Rs 200,000 million that will have to be raised from the end subscriber, Contractor said.

Jain, meanwhile, pointed out that in a scenario where were over a 100 channels were scrambling for a share of the ad pie, the rush to go pay was becoming more pronounced.

The ad pie may be a limited one but there is no dearth of new entrants wanting to get into the business, is Jain‘s view. According to him 30 new channels will see the light of day before the year is out.

Jain sees a lot of scope in the regional channels, especially the southern ones. According to him, it makes strategically sound sense to get strong regional language channels onto any platform as far as a bouquet completion perspective is concerned. The regional language channel market is the fastest growing today, Jain says.