Zee group promoter Subhash Chandra appears to have cleared outstanding dues to Zee Telefilms from what was remaining to be paid of the Rs 2200 million that had been transferred to disgraced stock broker Ketan Parekh last year.

The promoters have been offloading their stake in tranches over the last few months and had already repaid a major portion of the loan to the company. The latest stake sale should wipe out the entire outstanding loan which was reportedly about RS 870 million.

Figures on how many shares changed hands in the deal on the Bombay Stock Exchange varied between 6 million and 10 million but the price paid per share was around Rs 115 and the transaction took place in afternoon trade.

Reports say that in August 2001, Zee promoters had offloaded 2.5 million shares, representing a 0.6 per cent stake in the company, for about RS 250 - 300 million to an undisclosed foreign institutional investor. In July the promoters had executed a sale of 5 million shares of the equity of Zee for an estimated RS 600 million to an anonymous US-based fund.

Within a week of asking cable TV operators to refrain from relaying Indian satellite channels, the Pakistan Telecom Authority has re-allowed transmission of five Star TV channels.
The PTA on Friday issued instructions that ESPN, Star Sports, Fox News, Sky News and the National Geographic channels would return to screens from today.

However, the ban on Star Gold, Star News, Sony, B4U and the Zee network of channels among others would remain in place, the PTA has said in a statement.

On 31 December, chief of the Pakistan Telecom Authority Maj Gen Shabzada Alam Malik had warned that cable operators defying the ban would be penalised and their license cancelled.

Correspondingly, though, Indian authorities are yet to take a decision on whether PTV should be banned here.
District authorities in Meerut last week banned telecast of PTV channel through cable operators till January 25, 2002, to check "anti-national publicity".

Meanwhile, the Central Monitoring Service, under the I&B Ministry, is continuing the stepped-up content monitoring exercise of different television and radio channels it instituted at the beginning of the war in Afghanistan.

PTV is being monitored round the clock, with not just news bulletins under close scrutiny, but also discussions and talks shows that are telecast on the channel. Audio visual recordings of panel discussions and programmes on Kashmir are being forwarded to the screening committee in the I&B ministry every day. Inputs from the CMS, the ministry of External Affairs and the committee of secretaries will be used to take a decision on the future of PTV.

Doordarshan is shedding its image of a do-gooder pubcaster that has always scored the lowest on the vulgarity and violence front.
Beginning tonight, the national network is getting its hands into the blood and gore business when it starts the telecast of horror serial Aap Beeti, in the Saturday prime time slot. From the BR Chopra stables, Aap Beeti is directed by Ravi Chopra. The production house confirms that the serial is the first in the supernatural genre to hit DD1. Each story in the serial will be spread over two episodes, which will be aired in the 9:30 - 10:30 pm slot.

Aap Beeti is being pegged as a serial about "man‘s encounter with spirits". Doordarshan, under the leadership of CEO Anil Baijal, has apparently come to the conclusion that it will have to follow winning formulae that have been a hit with satellite channels if it has to retain its hold on viewers. The pubcaster has seen a good response to Shaktimaan, its fantasy series, and Suraag the detective serial over the last one year, and had recently asked private producers to come up with shows in several genres. Aap Beeti seems to be the first step in the direction.

Its social service mould has thus far held DD back from going in for overtly violent programming. In fact, a 1998 study conducted by the Centre for Advocacy and Research has pointed out that among the five channels surveyed, 759 distinct acts of violence were observed over a period of nine days. ‘In proportion to the hours monitored Zee had the highest acts of violence and DD1 had the lowest‘, the study says.

Satellite channels have had X-Zone and Anhonee on Zee which together had 118 or 53 and 65 acts of violence respectively, according to the study. Aahat, the hit horror serial on Sony had 13 acts of violence while Kohra on Star Plus had 30 acts of violence in a single episode. However, DD had its own share of blame. The child specific Shaktimaan had 17 acts of violence in a single episode, the study says.

Aap Beeti will try to get more eyeballs by putting up contests for viewers and giving away gold coins and other goodies as gifts, according to the production house.

ESPN Star on Friday unleashed ambitious programming plans for the year, even as cable ops in the country gear themselves to protest against the revised subscription rates of Rs 24.

ESPN MD Manu Sawhney, who addressed a press conference in Mumbai, said a total of 261 days on the channel would be devoted to cricket, of which 82 would feature Indian cricket. However, while DD will grab eyeballs in the beginning of the year with telecasts of international matches played on Indian soil, ESS has to wait till March to cover the Indian tour of the West Indies. The RS 8 hike in subscription rates, consequently, is not being seen too kindly by cable ops who are threatening to take the channel to court over the matter. Sawhney, however, is unperturbed.

Even as the year‘s plans harp on the massive willow coverage, he says the channel‘s focus has shifted to other sports like soccer, tennis, Formula 1 and golf. "The Indian viewer is discerning enough not to harp on Indian cricket all the time," he said, when quizzed about the response of cable operators to the hike.

An integrated PR campaign accompanies the new programming initiative, in print as well as on the electronic media. The channel‘s on-air promos feature its anchors Navjot Sidhu, Naseeruddin Shah, Harsha Bhogle and Geoff Boycott speaking of their passion for sport. The signature tune ‘It‘s my life‘ runs through the entire campaign, making a pitch for the younger generation sports lovers in the country. ESS is hoping to pack in the viewers with three of the four Grand Slam telecasts, the US Open golf tournament, the Australian Grand Prix and the English Premier League soccer, among other sporting events.

Maintaining that the Indian viewer is going through a period of maturity and currently demands plurality of choice, Sawhney says pay TV is fast becoming the norm in India as in the rest of the world. Lamenting the under declaration of connectivity, Sawhney says cable ops give out only 16 to 20 per cent of the actual subscriber base. The channel has also taken the drastic step of switching off signals to certain cable ops in cases of gross underdeclaration and non-payment, he said.

Sports commentator Harsha Bhogle, who also addressed the media conference, said value added sports channels like ESS are doing yeoman service by showcasing human achievement rather than human failures projected by news channels.

ESS‘ programmes like Super Selector has already broken the record for the largest show of its genre globally. After netting 316000 participants in the last month of 2001, the show hosted by Naseeruddin Shah has won several awards including the Promax and BDA Asia awards for 2001.

The ESPN School Quiz that has covered two million students in 23 cities in India, will also be aired as a 61 episode programme from April 2002. The ESS programming line up also includes the Indian tour to England in June, the Indian tour to New Zealand in December and the India, England, Sri Lanka triangular in June, Wimbledon, US Open, Australian Open and ATP Masters Series tennis, the UEFA football championship and the World Superbikes Championship.

Cable Television Laboratories has announced that it has finalised the OpenCable Application Platform (OCAP) software specification.

Called OCAP 1.0, the specification enhances the ability of consumer electronics manufacturers to build and market set-top boxes or integrated television receivers directly to consumers, a company release states. These devices can receive the services available on set tops provided by the cable operator. The specification enables cable to create an interactive television delivery mechanism to provide enhanced services to cable customers, the release says.

The OCAP specification is largely based on the European Multimedia Home Platform (MHP) middleware specification created by the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) organization. Thus, there is an opportunity for worldwide interoperability of interactive applications and content. The MHP and OCAP specifications also have been submitted to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) as a contribution to an international standard.

The release of the OCAP 1.0 specification supports an EE environment (based on Java technology), and will serve as the core for a family of future OCAP products. For example, OCAP 2.0, which will be released shortly, provides the addition of the Presentation Engine (PE) and a "bridge" that allows both to work together. The PE, similar to a Web browser, will provide support for creating and using the Web‘s standardised markup and scripting languages, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) andECMAScript. Manufacturers may choose to develop immediately to OCAP 1.0, or move directly to an OCAP 2.0 development, giving them flexibility to target different customer needs.

OCAP 2.0 will be fully backward compatible with OCAP 1.0. Further, OCAP 1.0 and 2.0 have been designed such that interactive television applications that have already been deployed by cable companies will continue to work when customers upgrade to an OCAP-compliant device.