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."

Prabhat, the Marathi channel, will be launching another regional channel on 4 April 2000. The channel called Suprabhat will have 4 hours of original programming which will be repeated throughout the day. It is being beamed off a Thaicom-3 transponder, the same one off which Prabhat is being beamed off.
The channel was on the brink of a shut down and had not been able to make payments to producers who were providing them with software. But since then an angel has stepped in and is said to be willing to back the group that has set up the channel to the hilt. A film director and producer has additionally been brought in on the company‘s board following the angel‘s entry.

With cash in hand, Deepak Agarwala, Anand Rangaswamy, Anil Shetty, Ajinkya Deo - the promoters of the channel - have been pouring it all into the Kannada service. A programming head has been hired in Banglaore and the gameplan is to launch Suprabhat by 4 April. The only thing that is to be seen is that if the channel is geared up to compete with the well established Kannada channel, Udaya, from the Sun stable.

Murdoch mania still is hot in town as speculation about what he really intends to do in the Indian market rising to a fever pitch. He had a rash of meetings on 14 March with top brass industrialists and other prominent political personalities.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and he discussed the possibilities of investment in the Infotech and telecom area. Ministerial sources disclosed his intentions to set up a state-of-the-art fibre optic telecom carrier network in Mumbai. A possible partner for this project is InCable which has been laying a fibre optic network in the city. Star TV does not have any investments in cable TV distribution, having sold out its holdings in Siticable to Zee TV. The fibre optic project will l cater to Murdoch‘s Infotech dreams in India and facilitate e-commerce and e-education and create tremendous job opportunities, ministerial sources said.

News Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch seems to have made a lot out of his Mumbai visit. The media baron held a series of meetings in Mumbai. He touched base with his old friends, colleagues, to-be business partners, ex-partners, and important local political heavyweights.

On Tuesday morning, he had a meeting with Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, wherein he reiterated his commitment to further his investments in Maharashtra, and also voiced his interest in taking part in the information technology revolution that the new NCP government is trying to bring into the state. The meeting was followed by an impromptu press conference.

The shrewd businessman has made sure to make the most out of his India trip and he is expected to make big announcements within a few

Intersputnik‘s Express-6A satellite was launched successfully on 12 March (Moscow Time). The satelllite to be located at 80 degrees East, is positioned as a bird that will significantly improve communications capacity across Russia and was lifted off Kazakhstan‘s Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard a Proton launch vehicle. Under an agreement with the Russian Satellite Communications Company (RSCC), Intersputnik will utilize the major part of Express-6A‘s 17 transponder strong C- and Ku-band relay capacity.
Express-6A will replace the aging Express-6 spacecraft currently in orbit and allows Intersputnik‘s customers to use earth stations without tracking systems, and providing a higher quality of services.

"The successful launch of Express-6A is the next step in modernizing Intersputnik‘s communications system," Gennady Kudryavtsev, Intersputnik‘s Director General, said. "The new Express-A series of spacecraft provides a longer service life, more capacity and higher radiated power. Express-6A will carry all of the television channels currently handled via Express-6, and also will be used for new digital communications and broadcasting channels including relay in Ku-band."

In addition to traditional services such as analog broadcasting and public switched telephone networks, Express-6A also will provide such services as digital television and radio broadcasting, Internet access and dedicated corporate VSAT-based Ku-band networks. Users of the Express-6A include such Russian television channels as TV-6, TV-Centre, AST; large telecommunications network operators (Rustel); dedicated networks operators (Insat, Sirena), and telephone companies from Intersputnik‘s member nations.

The second satellite in the new Express-A series is Express-3A, which is to be launched in June and positioned at 11 degrees West. This spacecraft will replace the aging Statsionar-11 (Gorizont-26) satellite. Express-3A will allow Intersputnik to offer more satellite channels to telecommunications companies interested in transAtlantic traffic.

Russia‘s Krasnoyarsk-based NPO PM is prime contractor for the Express-A-series satellites. The satellite bus is developed by NPO PM, while Alcatel Espace of France supplies the payload.

Sony Entertainment Television officially launched Max, its films, sports and events channel at a glittering bash in Mumbai‘s Oberoi Hotel on 10 March. Set CEO Kunal Dasgupta says that the channel has acquired the best of films for airing in the coming year. Hindi blockbusters like Hum Dil de Chuke Sanam, and even more importantly the biggest hit of the year "Kaho Na Pyaar Hain" which is still running to packed houses in India. "We have acquired a library of 800 movies for the channel.. and it‘s a fare that will attract audiences," says Dasgupta. "This apart also we have got one day cricket in Sharjhah, in March end, the cricketnext.com cup in Bangladesh, and other matches too." Apart from cricket special events around singing stars Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhonsale, among others are planned.

"The key words are maximum movies, maximum cricket, maximum events - Max," says Kacon Sethi, who heads Max.

The launch event was attended by a galaxy of television and film personalities: Jackie Shroff, Bhagyashree, Salil Ankola, video rights king Raman Maroo, one of the Taurani brothers, Rajiv Kapoor, Archana Puran Singh, Simone Singh, Fahad Samar, Jaaved Jaffrey, Ravi Behl, Mark Masceranhas, Krishen Kumar of T-Series, Mahesh Anand, Sonu Nigam, et al.