Zee‘s year-old niche Gujarati regional language channel Alpha Gujarati is giving Doorsharshan‘s DD11 and Reminiscent Television India‘s Gurjari a serious run for their money leaving them far behind in the viewership ratings race, a company release states.

According to ORG-MARG‘s INTAM reports commissioned by Zee Network and taking Ahmedabad city as a base measure, Alpha Gujarati has captured a whopping 60 per cent of the viewership pie.

The data is for all cable and satellite homes for the period between 4 March 2001 and 1 April 2001. Alpha Gujarati‘s 60 per cent relative viewership is more than twice that of DD11 which stands at 28 per cent, followed by Gurjari‘s 12 per cent.

As for the prime time 7:30 pm to 11 pm slot, Alpha Gujarati has a relative channel share of 62 per cent followed by DD 11 with 21 per cent and Gurjari with 15 per cent, the release states.

The Zee bouquet of 14 channels, which will be fully encrypted by 1 June, is likely to witness a drop in revenues in the Middle East markets, according to sources within the network.

There has been a drop in ad sales in the Gulf region for the channel following the news that the Zee bouquet is going fully pay. Advertisers have been pulling out because they see a massive fall in subscriber base once the channel is no longer free to air, the sources say. The Gulf market is very sensitive to price because expatriates from the Indian subcontinent who largely make up the viewership of channels like Zee have comparitively low purchasing power.

With conditional access systems well in place, subcontinental subscribers mostly access free to air channels which is why even Star Plus, which is doing phenomenally well in India, cannot really claim viewership relative to population in the region.

Though Zee officials have not given an exact date as to when the network will be encrypted other than saying it will happen sometime in May, sources say it will be from 1 June.

Deepak Shourie, whose last posting as CEO of Zee Publishing ended rather abruptly, will be taking charge of Discovery India on 7 May, putting to rest all speculation over who would fill managing director Kiran Karnik‘s shoes.

Karnik had announced on 13 December last year that he would be leaving Discovery in May after a successful stint where he provided the lead in establishing the channel in India. Karnik was at the helm when Discovery Communication India was launched in in 1995.

Shourie was formerly publisher of the weekly news magazine ‘Outlook‘, belonging to the Raheja group, before becoming executive president of the ‘Hindustan Times‘ newspaper in January 1999.

His last stint as CEO Zee Publishing ended on a controversial note last November when, according to company sources, he was asked to go by the top brass when he failed to agree to management consulting firm, AT Kearney‘s recommendation that Zee‘s news television division be merged with the entertainment television division.

Shourie‘s appointment comes as something of a surprise as market speculation was that Ambika Srivastava, vice-president advertising sales & marketing, would be taking over from Karnik.