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.