Zee Telefilms has appointed Mega Magic, a group company of the WorldCall Telecommunications Group, to provide legal distribution of Zee TV to be broadcast in Pakistan.

Mega Magic was appointed the sole distributor and seller of decoders and cards for the Zee TV after it went pay from 10 June.

A senior company official confirmed the decoders would cost 19,000 Pakistani rupees and the charges per house connection would be Rs 24 for a seven-channel package (Zee TV, Zee English, Zee Music, Zee MGM, Zee Cinema, Zee News and UTN - set to become Alpha Urdu).

Queried as to how the cable industry was organised in Pakistan, the official said the problems broadcasters faced were very similar to those in India. The industry is unregulated, disorganised and underdeclaration of subscribers is rampant, the official said.

There were also plans for a separate channel at some stage dedicated to Pakistan which would involve the development of local programming content, but this was still in the ideas stage, the official said.

Zee television currently offers a package of 14 channels which are marketed internationally and covers Asia, Europe, North America, Africa and Australia.

ALPHA GUJARATI, ALPHA BANGLA EXIT AUSTRALIA: Zee's Alpha Gujarati and Alpha Bangla have gone off air in Australia, probably due to poor response from subscribers. The two channels have been replaced by Zee group channel Asianet Bharati (soon to become Alpha Tamil), the official said. In Australia, Asianet Bharati is distributed through Prakasham Tamil TV Service of the Tamil Media Group.