Sandeep Goyal, the man promoter Subhash Chandra has chosen to head broadcasting operations at Zee Telefilms Ltd (ZTL), takes charge tomorrow, company sources have revealed.

When the announcement of Goyal‘s appointment was made on 15 April, it was said that he would be coming in only in June. He was "persuaded" to advance the timing of his arrival at Zee headquarters, the sources said.

Goyal takes charge at a time when things are certainly looking better at Zee. After hitting the bottom of the barrel at Rs 71 when news was swirling of a probe by market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) into the affairs of the company, the scrip has seen a steady rise and is now trading at Rs 114.

On the programming front too there is heartening news. Zee has finally broken the monopoly of Star Plus as far as the Top 10 ratings go. Zee‘s Koshish Ek Aasha (a soap, what else) was slotted at number 10 for the week ending April 28 as per AC Nielsen‘s TAM data.

With 11 of its programmes in The Top 50 viewed list, it has also edged out Sony Entertainment Television which has one less. Star still leads the pack by a long way with 29 of the top 50.

Goyal has 15 years of advertising industry experience with agencies ranging from HTA, Trikaya Grey to Mudra. He comes too Zee from advertising agency Rediffusion DY&R, where he was president.

The latest satellite in the PanAmSat (PAS) series, the PAS-10, which will cover several countries in the Indian Ocean area, including India, was launched from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan on Tuesday at 0111 GMT, according to the Interfax news agency.

The satellite was launched aboard a Russian Proton rocket and successfully brought into orbit some 228 kilometres above Earth at 0121 GMT, space officials said. PAS-10, the sixth Boeing-built satellite delivered to PanAmSat in the last 17 months, will provide international services from its orbital position of 68.5 degrees East longitude.

An artist‘s impression of the PAS-4

The launch is of significance to Indian broadcasters because customers beaming off PAS-4 will now be shifted to the PAS-10 satellite, a company representative says. PAS-4 has been running on a back-up processor since 1999 after the onboard battery failed and the main satellite control processor packed up.

Among the channels which are currently on PAS-4 are: National broadcaster Doordarshan (DD News; DD Sports; DD1, DD International), B4U, ESPN Asia, MTV India, Nickelodeon, HBO, CNN, BBC World, Cartoon Network, TCM, Discovery, Animal Planet, UTN and the religious channel Maharishi Veda Vision.

The PAS-10 is a Boeing 601HP satellite which was ordered September 1999. The 9-600-watt satellite will provide international services to Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe from its orbital position of 68.5 degrees East longitude. It has 48 transponders on board, 24 in Ku-band and 24 in C-band and has a design life of at least 15 years.

PAS-10 is intended to serve in the development of more advanced broadcast, high-speed data and Internet services across Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

(Picture courtesy Panamsat)