MUMBAI:The south seems to be emerging as a strong audience base for niche channels. After Discovery, it is the turn of National Geographic Channel to discover that the Tamil viewer needs to be catered to specially.

NGC has already dubbed a few programmes in Tamil which will air next month. Speaking to indiantelevision.com, NGC's senior V-P, content and communication Dilshad Master said: "Our Hindi feed is now available for 24 hours daily. NGC also has a presence on Vijay TV as a one-hour Tamil block. Due to the tremendous response that we have received from our viewers, National Geographic will be introducing a four-hour Tamil telecast from October. We are open to the idea of NGC blocks on other channels and over a period of time will consider slotting blocks of NGC programmes on other channels."

Programmes that National Geographic Channel will air in Tamil next month include:

# Egypt: Secret Chambers Revealed - This show broadcasts live on 17 September at 5:30 am. In the heart of the Great Pyramid, the most magnificent of all of Egypt's pyramids, lies an unfinished Queen's Chamber commonly referred to as air shafts and no one knows what lies behind the stone wedged some 65 meters up the shaft.

# On 16 September at 7 pm, the channel will air Going to Extremes - Wet. Viewers can follow travel writer and Oxford Geography don Nick Middleton to the wettest inhabited place on earth. The program combines meteorology with popular science and looks at life in this extreme climate zone of India- Cherrapunji.

# The channel nods at 9/11 with Sept 11 -Tales from Ground Zero at 8 pm on the anniversary day. One can see how dogs have been coping during and after the events of 9/11.

Media reports indicate that in addition to Tamil, the channel is also considering dubbing programmes in Bengali although Master has no comment to offer on the same.