Chennai based animation major Pentamedia Graphics Ltd (PGL) may be facing difficulties in other areas but that did not put a spoke in the formal launch of its kids channel Splash today.

Targeted at children below 14, Splash is a free-to-air 24-hour digital channel promoted by Intellivision, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pentamedia.

Test transmission of the channel began on August 17 as a seven-hour block from 2:30 pm to 9:30 pm.

Among the shows the channel is showcasing are Splash-o-Paedia and Splash In, two programmes that explore facts and examine current affairs and are anchored by children. These two shows will be aired on Sundays at 9.30 pm and 10.30 pm respectively.

Splash will be the first channel to kickstart with India-specific animated programmes like Pot Pourri and India Folk Tales. While Pot Pourri takes a look at Indian culture and art, India Folk Tales will feature interesting tales with engrossing plots and deep moral and philosophical values.

The channel has also lined up Casper, the friendly ghost on weekends at 9 am and Splash Busters a movie block for the movie buff. The channel promises to air Hollywood blockbusters like Back to Future I,II and III, Flintstones, Junior and The Nutty Professor.

According to reports, Rs 100 -120 million has been sunk into the venture and Pentamedia hopes to achieve revenues of Rs 140 million in the first year of operations. The channel has hired transponder space on Intelsat so as to target the markets in neighboring countries as well.

Six-month-old infotainment channel Channel Guide is all set to enter a new field of ‘Satellite Video Delivery Service‘. Elaborating on the concept, Ravi Deshmukh, COO, Channel Guide Network India Ltd says: "There is a growing demand from advertisers for a cheaper way of reaching local cable operators. There are close to 10,000 cable operators in India. The cost involved in reaching out and delivering hard copy to all of them is huge and beyond the capacity of small and medium scale advertisers.

Channel Guide plans to make use of its satellite service during the night hours (as the channel is off air from 11 pm to nine am) to telecast the advertisements. Cable operators can record advertisements and telecast them on their network on agreed upon terms. "We have agreements with almost all the cable operators and will have one monitoring agent for every 100 cable operators who will monitor their performance."

The advertiser will decide the area he wants to cover and accordingly inform Channel Guide. The advertisements to be telecast will be given to the channel. The area monitoring agent will in turn inform the respective cable operators, who will then record the signals and show it on the network at the specified time.

Advertising rates are fixed depending on the number of connections and the area for each cable operator, giving advertisers the option to opt for the optimum mix of advertising budget and target customer. The revenues will first go to the channel which will pay the cable operators through the agents.

"They (advertisers) can even change the advertisement seven days before telecast, a provision not possible in other advertising options. In fact, we are studying a proposal to start uplinking from India, which will reduce the seven-day minimum to one day. This is likely to be through by January next," says Deshmukh.

Commenting on Channel Guide‘s position, he says: "We have reached five million C & S homes. A paid advertisement service called ‘Channel Guide Exclusive‘ will start this month," he said, but refused to divulge the name of the channels that have agreed to advertise on Channel Guide. Apart from the broadcasters, film and music companies are expected to use the channel as an advertising medium.

Regional language programming, slotted in the 8-9 am band, will also start from this month, says Deshmukh.

The company is also looking at content syndication for programming and giving it to small regional print publications. "We receive programming data for almost all channels, while small publications die to get the data. We can provide them the same," he says.

Scientific-Atlanta, Inc a leading supplier of transmission networks for broadband access to the home has announced results for its first quarter. For the quarter ending September 28, 2001, sales were $410.1 million.This represented a 31 percent decrease from the same period a year ago. Net earnings from continuing operations for the quarter were $37.1 million. This is a 42 per cent decline from the same period last year. Earnings in the first quarter of fiscal year 2002 declined by $76.2 million, or 67 per cent, from the comparable period of last year.

Compared to the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2001, first quarter net earnings from continuing operations declined $43.4 million or 54 per cent, excluding a one-time, after-tax charge of $7.1 million in the fourth quarter related to a tender for shares of PowerTV, Inc. Including that one-time event, earnings were down $36.2 million, or 49 per cent.

Bookings were $172.1 million, a decrease of $502.6 million, or 74 per cent, from the prior year‘s first quarter. Business activity was slower in the quarter due to the economy; and following the events of 11 September, the company‘s normally back-end loaded bookings did not materialise in the last few weeks of the quarter. However, in the first few weeks of the second quarter, the order take rate has been significantly higher than in the first quarter. Since the beginning of the second quarter, the company has received orders for approximately 700,000 Explorer digital set-tops.

Sales of Subscriber products decreased 28 per cent to $278.7 million from the prior year‘s first quarter, while bookings of Subscriber products fell 77 per cent to $105.2 million. Backlog at quarter end was $662.9 million, a decrease of $225.9 million from the first quarter of the previous year.

The company‘s balance sheet remained strong, with cash and short-term investments of $591.1 million at the end of the first quarter.

In the first quarter, the company shipped 855 thousand Explorer digital set-tops, bringing the total to more than 8 million shipped to date. Shipments of MQAM modulators, which are critical for the deployment of video-on-demand and subscription video-on-demand services, were a record 1,041 units in the quarter.

However the company is undergoing restructuring of its worldwide operations. The company will reduce its worldwide workforce by 10 per cent. Five hundred people in manufacturing and 250 people in engineering, marketing, sales, service will lose their jobs. Scientific-Atlanta expects these actions to reduce its costs and expenses by approximately $61 million on an annual basis, starting in the third fiscal quarter. The company expects to take a one-time, pre-tax charge of approximately $22.0 million, or $0.09 per share, in its second fiscal quarter, and additional pre-tax charges in the second half of the fiscal year totaling approximately $9.0 million, or $0.04 per share.

Summarising the quarter, James F. McDonald, Scientific-Atlanta‘s chairman, president, and CEO said: "In a very difficult quarter, we continue to be profitable. We remain committed to our belief that interactivity in the form of on-demand television and Internet-related applications will become increasingly important to our customers, as they strive to differentiate their digital services from those of the satellite service providers. Our continuing investment in interactive network solutions positions us to benefit as this next phase of the market begins."