MUMBAI: The organisers of World Series Hockey have announced the schedule for inaugural edition of the professional hockey to be held from 29 February - 2 April.

The hockey league, involving 59 matches with as many as 56 league matches besides two semis and a final, will kick-start with the Chandigarh Comets taking Bhopal Badshahs on their home venue, Chandigarh.

The organisers have planned a grand opening ceremony preceding the inaugural game in Chandigarh.

In order to grab maximum eyeballs, all the matches will be played during prime time. The league stage will have two matches a day at 7 pm and 9 pm.

The top four teams from the league stage will qualify for the semi-finals to be held on April 1 at 6 pm and 8.30 PM. The venues for the semi-final and the final match have not been finalised.

The grand final will be held on April 2 at 8.30 pm, and the finalist with a higher seed from the league stage will host this game. The league will have four off-days on 13, 18, 22 and 31 March, a day before the crucial semi-final will be held.

WSH technical director Dennis Meredith said, ?The schedule was drawn up in sync with international tournament guidelines for adequate rest to the players and technical officials between matches. This ensures that the standard of hockey in WSH is top-notch at all times and will be an absolute treat for fans.?

Nimbus Sport COO Yannick Colaco said, ?All stakeholders have been taken into consideration while planning the WSH schedule. Floodlit matches in the evenings will provide the passionate hockey fans with an electrifying environment. With all the matches played at prime time, fans will be able to enjoy world class hockey after they?re back home. This is the first time the passionate Indian fans will have access to world class hockey for 34 days of non-stop prime time action.?

The WSH was launched in 2010 by Indian Hockey Federation in partnership with Nimbus Sport, which holds the commercial rights for the tournament.

With less than a month to go for WSH to start, Nimbus is still to officially announce the franchise owners for Bhopal, Chandigarh and Punjab.

Neo Sports Broadcast, a subsidiary of Nimbus, will telecast the matches on its Neo Sports channel. The tournament offers a record prize money of Rs 100 million.

MUMBAI: With competition hotting up in the news channel turf, Janmat is planning a major makeover. Shifting from its primary positioning as a ?views? channel, the focus will now be on offering news as it expands its infrastructure network across the country.

While news will broadly take up 70 per cent of the content, 20 per cent will be on analysis and 10 per cent on interviews. "We are re-launching the channel. We will be news rather than programme-driven. Analysis will supplement the news and not the other way round," says Janmat editor and CEO Sudhir Chaudhary.

The upgradation will involve an investment of Rs 400 million. "Speed and selection of news will be important for us. What we hope would set us apart is viewer-oriented packaging and our focus on news that viewers can use," says Chaudhary.

Acting to this plan, Janmat has added bureaus in Srinagar, Chandigarh, Bhopal, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Bhubaneswar, Kolkata and Guwahati to its existing ones in Mumbai and Delhi. The Marathi reporters of sister channel Mi Marathi will also pool in their resources.

Some of the existing programmes will get a makeover to fit into the channel?s new image while others will be axed. Prime time shows are going to be slotted between 7-11 pm and will include top stories of the day, news makers and news analysis.

The channel will also have shows on sports, astrology, entertainment and business, informs Chaudhary. Talk shows and features on soft news will dot the programming on Saturdays and Sundays.

The core target audience of the channel will be in the 25-44 age group. "Ours will be a common man?s channel," says Chaudhary.

Janmat?s updated studio will include "Octopus" automation system and "Wizrti" graphic software which creates virtual sets (like a stadium when the anchor is presenting a show). They have also got a dozen of OV vans all over country.The sets have been redesigned by art director Nitin Desai (of Jodha Akbar and Mission Kashmir fame).

"We will concentrate on both the perception and the numbers game," Chaudhary says.