Here‘s another player leaping into the television universe. Galaxy Multimedia Ltd, a multimedia and entertainment company, is coming out with an initial public offering (IPO) of Rs 25 million at par to part finance its 5,000 square feet high-tech studio that is currently being set up at Andheri in Mumbai. The studio, offering high-end fully digital post production facilities, is scheduled to commence operations from April. The total project cost to set up the studio is estimated at Rs 120.5 million.The company, promoted by Vipin Rai Bhayana, has its main focus on multimedia which includes computer based tutorials (CBTs) for schools and colleges, production of TV software.

"We intend to provide a one-stop shop for all production, post-production and multimedia requirements ensuring convenience and constant value-addition to customers. The studio we are setting up is totally integrated - both video and audio," said Galaxy chairman and managing director Vipin Bhayana.

The company will finance the studio project through an initial equity infusion of Rs 100 million and Rs 25 million through rupee term loans. Out of the Rs 100 million equity, the promoters have already invested Rs 51 million and Rs 24 million has been raised from FIIs (DSP Merill Lynch and Alliance Capital) and associates. The company will raise the further Rs 25 million from the public. The five-year rupee term loan of Rs 25 million has been raised from Bank of India (BoI). The lead manager to the issue is UTI Securities.

Describing the share holding pattern of the company, Mr Bhayana said that the management (including promoter and board of directors) holds 51 per cent, associates hold 14 per cent, NRIs and OCBs hold six per cent, FIIs hold four per cent and the public will hold 25 per cent.

The company has pre-empted its present multimedia installed capacity for 18 months. It has entered into a tie-up with Schoolnet India, a company formed by IL&FS, for 18 months and will be providing it with 10 CBT titles for K-10 programmes.

Galaxy Multimedia is currently working on the development of education aids. The MoU with Schoolnet India was signed in October 1999.

Galaxy has also entered into a joint venture with another media company for producing the television serial Hotel Hindustani for Zee TV that has been sold to Zee TV through an associate company Buddha Films. The serial is scheduled to be on air from February-end. The company is currently working on four more teleserials slated to be shown on ther channels.

Turner International‘s Hema Govindan said that the key difference between the TV channel and the site will be new, interactive elements introduced via the World Premier Tool.

"For instance, hypothetically speaking, in a chat room, Johnny Bravo will have a dialogue with people visiting our website. It will also be specific to the country the website is being built for. The cultural cues will be very , very different. The characters we champion, the interactive elements will be different." Govindan said that the net could consider regional sites in Indian languages at a later stage, similar to it‘s channel strategy. She added that the channel penetration‘s was 10 million at present, and plans were to extend penetration beyond urban India. "The tune in will only come with more localisation and customisation. We are also looking at initiatives like Get Tooned, when we actually animated five Indian kids and put them on air as interstentials."

The channel has featured five kids in Australia and New Zealand, five in South East Asia, 5 in Taiwan and five in India. Research has shown that Indian kids would like to see winners. Because of that, the channel plans to showcase more Indian kids as winners in cartoon form in the new future.

Home Box Office (HBO) is all set to launch on 22 March, 2000. The channel which boasts to be the first one on cable television when it started in 1972 claims to be the leader in a lot of areas not only in programming but also technical, promises the viewer a variety of entertainment right from blockbuster hollywood movies to a wide array of entertainment including various shows mini-series and concerts. The channel will follow the self-censorship mode and won‘t feature "after dark" films.

On gathering eyeballs, Anshuman Misra, Managing Director, Turner International India, says "Content and programming will drive the viewers from our competing channels".

HBO which reaches over 47 million viewers in 45 countries is confident of creating a bang in India. The channel targets the urban and the semi-urban viewers which amounts to 15 million subscribers though the management is uncertain about the time frame to reach such a vast amount of viewers. The initial target is: five million homes in the next six to seven months. The encrypted channel beaming off PanAmSat-4, will remain advertisement free for around six months and thus is not perturbed about the TRPs its programming generates.

The average per subscriber rate is Rs 6.00 but that will differ from one cable operator to another. The Sceintific Atlanta PowerVu decoders are being place with cable operators on payment of a deposit of Rs 10,000.

HBO which lacks distribution network will face a tough task of reaching the desired penetration. A distribution team of 20, along with independent distributors, is working on taking the channel further into urban homes.

Misra expects HBO to contribute two-thirds of Turner‘s subscription revenues when in full steam. It might well get that, but the channel will have a tough battle on its hands what with Star Movies all the rage and Zee Movies being launched yesterday as a free service. The additional advantage that Zee TV has is that it owns the cable TV netowrk Siticable. The third major rival is the local cable channel - airing pirated English movies - operated by the cable operator for his subscribers.

Misra is not worried however. "Our content will rule," says Misra.

The two babe-in-the-wood channels blanked out yesterday on the day of their launch for a cumulative period of 45 minutes. The first black out came between 9:30 and 10 pm and was followed by another shutdown between 11 and 11:15 pm. The channels are being beamed off.

Zee TV officials are looking into the development. However, Asiasat officials point out that an unknown carrier barged in on the same frequency of the two chanels leading to their disappearce. However, they add that they have not been able to ascertain who it was and whether the interfering transmission was intentional or accidental.

Sources, however, indicate that there was a problem during the transmission of the channels, which could be attributed to a mismatch of the symbol rate at which the transmission was being done and the symbol rate at which the Philips boxes - which are being used receive the two digital channels - were set. That resulted in a blackout.

Two English entertainment channels were launched on 15 March by Zee Telefilms chairman Subhash Chandra and Chief Executive R.K. Singh in Mumbai. Zee Movies and Zee English will be offering fierce competition to Star World, Star Movies and HBO. Or at least so hopes the Zee Telefilms management.
The two channels are aiming at the niche but relatively large English speaking and understanding audiences in India and also lovers of B-grade movies and some up-to-date series from the US market. The launch coincides with the launch of the preview broadcast of global movie champ HBO over India.

Zee English and Zee Movies are free to air currently but will be encrypted as part of the Zee digital bouquet. The company is bringing in a small batch of Philips IRDs to seed the market until the transition to a digital bouquet.

Both the channels are airing a mix of eighties, nineties, and even the most recent season‘s programming from the US. On offer are series such as ER, Friends, The David Letterman show, Here‘s Lucy, Central Park West, Three‘s Company, Charlie Chaplin, Twilight Zone etc on Zee English.

"Unlikely," says Chandra. "Ultimately it will be the consumer who will decide. And we are confident we will help him decide in our favour."