MUMBAI: The Thiruvananthapuram-headquartered media house Asianet Communications Ltd is planning to launch two more channels in the Malayalam television space. One of these two projects will deal with a television channel covering the education genre.

Speaking on the occasion of the second anniversary celebrations of the media firm's youth-oriented entertainment channel Asianet Plus, Asianet chairman Reji Menon revealed the company's long term plans. "Asianet targets to have a total of five television channels and one of these will be an educational channel," he said, without offering any time frame on the plans.

"Asianet will be launching India's first ever educational channel. We are still working out the plan and the project is presently in its preliminary stage," Asianet managing director K Madhavan told indiantelevision.com.

According to market sources, Asianet is seriously looking at expanding its presence in the Southern television space by entering the non-Malayalam (Kannada, Telugu and Tamil) market. "The fifth channel might possibly target one of these three languages," says a source.

Flagship entertainment channel Asianet, the youth channel Asianet Plus and the news channel Asianet News constitute Asianet's television force at present.