Fueled by expansion in its business ventures, Zee Telefilms announced that its net profit has gone up by 160% to Rs 3.33 billion. Zee‘s net profit for the last year was Rs 1.28 billion. But despite of the rise in the net profit the Zee board has decided to shrink the size of its ADR issue which is brought down to a meager $200 million as against the $1.5 billion issue which was decided earlier.

The main reason for this is the fall in the stock prices. Also the company will be directing the funds created by the ADR to content creation and not convergence as was decided earlier.

Last year saw a spate in activities in Zee Telefilms with the company going all out by starting four regional channels and two English channels. Also the company went all out with its Internet ventures by launching its portal zeenext.com and also starting an ISP. Zee also acquired a 100% stake in Zee Multimedia Worldwide.

After going all out to jump into the Internet bandwagon, media companies are now hunting for people to head these ventures. Both the channels have given typical dotcom ads in classifieds section of newspapers.
Star TV has already made investments in quite a few portals. Sony is also rumored to have acquired a stake in the site freshlimesoda.com.

Besides investments in other portals the media companies are also looking at bringing convergence in their own backyard, and hence this rush for dotcom professionals.

While Sony is looking for someone as Head- Internet business and Head- Communication Technology, Star is looking at a much wider range of people. And of course, the pay packets would be hefty - the dotcom way.

Close on he heels of Zee-Asianet tie up, Vijay TV is getting its act together to face the competition.

The UTV owned channel has tied up with Star TV for cable distribution purpose. The channel also has a arrangement with NDTV for sharing news content.

Besides tying up with the major broadcaster Vjay TV is also pulling up its socks in the programming department. The channel already airs serials which are a take on the hugely popular shows like Movers & Shakers and Shaktimaan.

Now the channel plans to start a new series from 15 May. The new game show is inspired by the show Kaun Banega Crorepati which will be aired on Star TV. The only difference is that the price money will be in lakhs and not crores - good enough for a regional channel. In fact the show will have price money bigger than any other regional channel - Rs 100,000 per episode.

UTV is also looking to expand its reach as a regional player by starting more regional channels with the help of Star as its distribution partner.

The MTV Youth Marketing Forum promised a lot. For the first time, the naughty music channel decided to shift it away from its sinful commercial capital of India, Mumbai venue of two years, and hold it in India‘s neta-babu capital, Delhi. And apparently the response was relatively lukewarm. Nevertheless, the panel of speakers was of international caliber with bigwig marketing heads from multinational companies jawing away about how you should market to kids.

First off the blocks was the cool customer Ron Coughlin, the vice-president of Pepsi Cola International, who spoke about how Pepsi stays young generation after generation (I am sure a lot many more people would have popped by for a listen, had he spoken about the secret of "us people" - not silly bottles - staying young. Nevertheless, since he is not a plastic surgeon nor a sage with miraculous rejuvenation powers, he spoke about what he knows best: that is peddling coloured acidised sugared water.)

Swatch vice-president worldwide Julian Gould pontificated like the Pope next on successful marketing strategies that work across international boundaries. Timely advice but was anyone in the audience still awake? Yaaawwwwn!!!! Hasn‘t anyone read forecasting guru John Naisbitt who has predicted that large countries are likely to fission into smaller units, each with its own wants and needs. That nothing works equally well everywhere on a global stage; you have to go local or more precisely global. Better luck next time Monsieur Gould.

Malcom Hanlon, regional media director (Nokia), Zenith offered tips on how sagging brands can create excitement and catch the young consumers‘ fancy. We sure do know Nokia‘s success strategy: make cosmetic changes to make the their cell phones look real jazzy and lure the young who get bedazzled by the lure of the colour. MTV says that Hanlon actually spoke about Nokia‘s tack "of encouraging youth to discover new technologies is the only one of the ways that Nokia is connecting with people." Full-scale hype man! Take it easy folks!

Sony Computer Entertainment president Chris Deering followed with his thesis (and a major plug for his firm) on the extraordinary success of the Playstation. Let‘s cut through the flubber: isn‘ t the Playstation‘s success due to Sony‘s creation of mind-numbing, addictive, mind-capturing, and mind-draining games that hypnotically urge the kids - with their creepy sound and noises - to keep coming back and trying their hand at becoming victors in at least some imaginary world, if not the real one?) The youth can definitely do without the Playstation in their home...("Hey Son! Cut it Out with that noisy video game!!! Can‘t you see I have tonnes of office work left to be done" - how often have we heard that one from a worn out, overworked Dad .)

Asiacontent.com vice-president Paul Myers (hey are you not the same bloke from Asia Business News Online) spoke about how the Net can be used to capture the minds of kids. Surely there is no magic fix-it formula as it does not take too much - toss up some decent porn, some wacky noisy games or vulgar jokes on the Net and boy you have the kids chuckling like Beavis and Butthead. Jeez, why can‘t people keep life simple, why do they have to complicate even marketing. Probably that‘s the only way they will earn their hefty pay packets.

The Youth Marketing Forum 2000 gave the senior chaps at MTV and The Times of India to flaunt their stuff and inflate their egos. Namely, MTV chief Alex Kuruvilla, Times of India chief Arun Arora and finally MTV marketing director Vikram Raizada. Click on the following links if you want to go insane reading the rants of marketing to the youth. Have fun. Goodbye!!!! .

B4U, the music channel, which is making a hard play at finding its place in the crowded channel bazaar in India, is slated to debut tomorrow, 6 May. The satellite: PAS-4. The service: digital and free to air.
The channel is starting with an eight hour original programming band, to be expanded to 12 hours in the not too distant future. Distribution is in the hands of Modi Entertainment Network,which is distributing the three other channels in the B4U bouquet, FTV, MCM and B4U Movies (to be launched in the next two months).

The Benjamin digital receivers which cable operators need to to receive the service are being given away on payment of a Rs 3,000 deposit with the monthly rental being Rs 250. Gupta says they can be bought outright on payment of Rs 13,000.

The B4U bouquet has backing from four heavyweights: Kishore Lulla (who is the chairman, and also runs movie rights owner Eros), Bharatbhai Shah (who is heavily into Bollywood productions and is also in the diamond trade), Gokul Binani (a metals businessman) and L.N. Mittal (a steel manufacturer and trader).

Indian information and broadcasting (I&B) minister Arun Jaitley said once again yesterday that the Broadcasting Bill is before the group of ministers telecom and IT convergence. The committee will decide its final shape, he said while speaking to the daily The Times of India. He said that the bill had been sent to the law ministry for before the draft was finalised. The department of telecom prepared the telecast and frequency allocation side of the bill, which was then amalgamated with the recommendations given by the the I&B ministry.
He could not give any target date when the Bill is likely to see the light of day. He added that there was undue importance should not be given to the administrative controls of the various government departments. He said that he preferred to let the overall structure fall in place, following which the system would be created.

Jaitley hinted that a comprehensive law on convergence is likely to become the de facto legal recourse for even the television industry.