Nickelodeon may not be a "happening" channel in India in but that is not the case everywhere. The Viacom-owned kids channel is currently running a new interactive initiative in the UK that lets viewers choose their viewing schedule via their remote control and pick the programmes they want to watch for a whole week by voting for their favorite show and then seeing it half an hour later. The initiative went into play yesterday and will run for a week.

Using an application developed by NDS Group (a News Corporation company) as part of Nickelodeon‘s successful "Watch Your Own Week" event, Nickelodeon will let its viewers vote interactively for the schedule, an NDS release says.

Viewers will be presented with three of their favourite programmes every half an hour from 8 am until 8 pm and encouraged to choose between them by presenters. Votes will be cast using the interactive application, via the BSkyB platform, which will determine what is shown next on the channel. Kids can also enter in a competition to win one of the following prizes: Playstation 2, Sony personal recordable minidisc player or a Palm Pilot personal organiser by submitting their telephone number.

Each new selection of programmes will see a fresh round of voting and Nickelodeon viewers can choose to enter a prize draw after their choice is made. Cost warnings will appear on-screen, while security systems shall ensure that only one vote is possible per session.

Kids can also vote online at www.nick.co.uk or via the telephone. Nickelodeon anticipates that over a quarter of a million votes will be received via the NDS Value@TV application during the half term special, in addition to those collected via telephone, internet and SMS. Kids are the ultimate early adopters of new technology and iTV provides a new means of connecting with them.

Nickelodeon can increase viewer retention through this innovative interactive content, which, ultimately, will result in increased revenue.

Come 1 November and French fashion channel FTV will become an encrypted feed.

Preparations for the conversion to a digital feed are on in full swing, says Rajan Kaaicker, CEO Distribution Group, Modi Entertainment Network, the channel‘s current distributer in India. According to Kaaicker, 60 per cent of the seeding operations concerning distribution of set top boxes have been completed. The full rollout is expected to be complete by 15 November, he says.

Kaaicker said Modi was using the more expensive Scientific Atlanta set tops costing roughly Rs 33,000 and had no plans to subsidise them. He however said that there would be various payment packages that would be worked out with operators. Kaaicker would not reveal how many boxes he planned to distribute across the country.

Queried as to whether distribution of the channel would be restricted post-encryption considering its niche character, Kaaicker said all-India distribution was what he was looking at as FTV was being positioned as a youth and lifestyle channel. He said currently FTV had a viewer base of 23 million and that was the viewership he expected post-encryption as well.

As to what price the channel was being offered, Kaaicker would only say it would be part of a package deal. Cable industry sources reveal that MEN is bundling FTV along with Hallmark and DD Sports, the two other channels it currently distributes along with French music channel MCM. The cost for all three channels has been put at Rs 13.15 in the metros. The sources say that for the present no price tag is being put on FTV but the costs of both DD Sports and Hallmark have been hiked and the softener as it were is that FTV comes along with the other two. According to the sources, DD Sports which was earlier priced at Rs 5.50 will now cost Rs 7.15 while Hallmark will go up from Rs 3 to Rs 6.

How the cable operators will respond to this move is still unclear though. It should be noted that representatives of two MSOs in Mumbai said they were yet to receive notification on the issue. The representative of a third MSO, while acknowledging that they had received an intimation, said a decision had yet to be taken as to whether to accept the new package rates.

The question that has no clear answer is who would be willing to pay for FTV. It seems to attract a very fragmented viewer base and that too at odd hours. One cable operator had this insight to offer though. According to him, the channel is very popular in the smaller centres for its "hot" content.

It is also true that the monies coming to FTV through ad sales is zilch and moving to a pay mode makes sense if for no other reason than the fact that a regular income source is established.

FTV beams off the Asiasat 2 satellite.

It‘s all about strategy. If Zee tried the "its raining serials" approach as part of its relaunch, Sony Entertainment believes in building the brand "brick by brick", as SET CEO Kunal Dasgupta puts it.

And if strategies are important so are catchlines. And Sony‘s is the ‘T strategy‘ with its focus on prime time viewing. The strategy aims at capturing viewer interest in the two and half hour time band during which people watch TV daily, according to Nachiket Pantvaidya, vice president, programming and production, SET India. Nine - 10 PM from Mondays to Thursdays and 8 - 11 PM on Fridays are the time bands the channel will target in the coming months. This will be done by airing a plethora of soap operas in these focussed bands.

The stress would be on general entertainment, but a re-assessment of the situation would be undertaken in January 2002, according to Dasgupta. "We would not like to hit the market with multiple shows in one go, but would prefer to launch new programmes in a phased manner," he said at a press conference on Monday. Sony‘s flop celebrity game show, Jeeto Chappar Phaad Ke, meanwhile, will be taken off air from 16 November after completing 75 episodes. A new game show, either homegrown or licensed, is also on the cards in the next six months.

Among the 10 soaps that will shortly go on air is Kutumb, a Balaji production, that will be telecast at 9.30 PM from Monday to Thursday.

Unlike Kkusum and Star‘s Kyunki Saas?, Kutumb, another Ekta Kapoor concept, treads a slightly different track although it remains firmly in the Indian extended family domain. There is a spoilt rich brat whose efforts to woo a determined, morally upright girl are all in vain till he manipulates matters so that they have to get married. The ‘saas-bahu‘ feuds have been brought into the ‘husband-wife‘ domain. The family determined not to accept the daughter-in-law in the fold, her efforts to maintain her dignity while seeking love and affection are the tangles that Kutumb seeks to unravel. Ekta‘s own one-liner for the serial, meanwhile, is "They hated each other so they married each other".