Times are tough in television these days with the advertising pie shrinking. And channels are resorting to the tack of running older shows. Star, Zee, Sabe, DD have all done it. Can Sahara TV be far behind?
Not really. Following the lead of other satellite channels which have started repeat telecasts of successful shows, Sahara TV has started airing Wilayattee Babu from 5 November.

An episodic sitcom series, Wilayattee Babu‘s star cast includes Shekhar Suman, Sudhir Pandey, Rakesh Bedi, Farha, Divya Seth, Seema Kapoor, Navneet Nishan, Bharat Kapoor, Bhavna Balsavar and Yunus Parvez. Each episode aims at hilariously highlighting the differences between the Asia and the West, and the storyline revolves around an NRI‘s antics on coming home to India.

Produced by Future Communications and directed by Raju Parsekar, Wilayattee Babu was earlier aired on terrestrial channel Doordarshan.

Says Sahara vice-president communications Priya Raj : "Satellite channels have a different and better reach than a terrestrial channel and we hope to get a better response. This was a weekly show earlier but now it is being aired as a daily at 7.30 pm Mondays to Fridays. Within the next two to three weeks, we should know viewers‘ response and ratings. Currently, we have feedback that the show is getting a good response, that there is good awareness about it."

The show presently has two associate sponsors in All Out and MDH Masala, and is on the lookout for additional advertisers and sponsors.

Music lovers all over the world can reap the benefits of the world‘s largest listening post with Hong Kong based SpeedCast‘s proposed alliance with Radio Free Virgin, a leading digital broadcasting company.Speedcast is a leading broadband enabler of satellite based services, which aims to become the leading broadband Internet and multimedia service provider with three satellite-enabled broadband services SpeedCast Broadband, SpeedCast Multimedia and SpeedCast Broadcast.

Radio Free Virgin will be available on SpeedCast‘s NetTV which started last week. It brings the listener music through digital distribution, both on and off the desktop. The company‘s state-of-the-art, CD-quality streaming audio will be used by Internet Service Providers in Asia and the Middle East. They will distribute Radio Free Virgin‘s premier music content and CD-quality stations.

The Los Angeles based company‘s music channels represent a combination of well-known brands, as well as original Radio Free Virgin programming. The music is a mix of pop, hip-hop, funk, reggae, jazz and rock.

Speedcast hopes to connect with music buffs who want to keep themselves updated with happenings on the international music scene. Radio Free Virgin claims to offer unique programming that can‘t be found on traditional radio. The company hopes the new relationship will help it penetrate the Asian markets. Speedcast‘s NetTV delivers streaming multimedia video and audio content to the edge of the Internet, thus avoiding the problem of traffic getting blocked on the internet.