Sony Entertainment Television and the Rajan Raheja-owned Hathway Cable & Datacom have reached agreement on a dispute that had developed over unpaid dues as well the declared connectivity of its pay channel service of SetMax, AXN and CNBC.

The channels, which were off air since 2 January on the Hathway feed, began beaming again on Monday in Mumbai, Pune and Nashik - the areas under dispute. According to Sony, the dues outstanding were Rs 1.5 million for the period from June 2000.

Officials in Sony and Hathway were tightlipped as to nitty gritty of what had been agreed upon vis-a-vis the declared paid connectivity of the three channels. But it is believed that Sony had to scale back its demand of a threefold increase in the declared connectivity of paid subscribers from November 2000.

According to cable industry sources, Hathway earlier had a declared paid connectivity of around 10,000 for SetMax in Mumbai, 20,000 for CNBC, and 40,000 for AXN.

Alexander Brown, who led ESPN and ESPN-Star Sports‘ efforts in Asia, has been named President and Chief Operating Officer of Virtual Spectator, a New Zealand-based company that uses proprietary software and three dimensional (3D) animation to create personal viewing experiences for television and Internet sports coverage.

Brown will manage the worldwide day-to-day business operations of Virtual Spectator as well as develop strategic initiatives for the company. He will be based at Virtual Spectator‘s new offices in New York, which are to become the company‘s global headquarters. Product research, development and production will continue to be based in New Zealand.

Brown recently was named one of the ten "power brokers" in Asian sports by "Sport Business".