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  • BBC goes 'glocal' with online news service

    Submitted by ITV Production on Jul 23, 2002
    News Headline

    LONDON: Next time you log on the Beeb‘s online news service, you will have access to content more relevant to the country of your origin.

    Using the same BBC News online material, international and UK users will now have the choice of separate news editions with agendas relevant to their needs. According to a company release, international visitors to the BBC‘s news services on the web will be able to choose from a new publicly-funded World Edition at BBCNews.com from 23 July, a section that features news and analyses emphasising a global news agenda.

    BBCNews.com also offer easier access to international coverage of sport, arts, science and technology, as well as the BBC World Service‘s site which features text and audio in 43 languages, the release adds. The cost of providing a news agenda more relevant to international users is being met entirely from the BBC World Service‘s grant-in-aid from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, it says.

    Costs for the supply of BBC News to the BBC World Service are already met through grant-in-aid. Users in the UK meanwhile will be able to choose a UK edition through BBCi, including - as now - full world coverage, but giving greater prominence to UK stories and features at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news. The same news reporting will be available to all users - the difference being the way in which it is presented for each audience.

    Both public service gateways will be free of advertising and give access to all the web content produced by the BBC. Users of the BBC News site (either from the UK or abroad) will be given the choice of direct access to their preferred edition - either international or UK and will be automatically directed there on subsequent visits.

  • Bangalore's Opium Bar introduces Hookah Court

    Jul 23, 2002

    BANGALORE: Opium, the Bangalore-based bar for the well-heeled, has launched a Shisha court, an area where afficionado

  • DreamWorks deal for Japanese anime film 'Millennium Actress' excludes Asia

    Jul 23, 2002

    LOS ANGELES: DreamWorks SKG has licensed the worldwide distribution rights for the highly acclaimed Japanese animated

  • Star Vijay confident that show hosted by Lakshmi will shake Sun TV stranglehold in TN

    Submitted by ITV Production on Jul 23, 2002
    News Headline

    MUMBAI: It was just under a year ago that Star India announced it had acquired a majority stake in the Tamil regional language channel Vijay TV (9 August 2001). Now, nearly 10 months after the channel went digital with a whole new programming menu on 1 October, Star Vijay looks to have a show that can lead the challenge against Tamil titan Sun TV.

    Just into its second week, Kathai Alla Nijam (KAN), Tamil TV‘s first "real" reality show, has caught the imagination of the viewer in Tamil Nadu, asserts Ajay Vidyasagar, general manager regional channels, Star India. Vidyasagar is confident that when the TAM ratings data is released next week, his contention will be borne out.

    REALITY-STRUCK: Kathai Alla Nijam show host Lakshmi with orphan Abhi in a shot from yesterday‘s episode.

    KAN is an episodic format live phone-in show with well-known film personality Lakshmi hosting. Produced by acclaimed film director K Balachandar‘s Min Bin Bangal Productions, the show, heavily research based, picks up from true-life incidents that have been reported in the press. Human interest stories are what the show tracks down as a follow up to what has appeared in the media and may have slipped out of the public conciousness, says Vidyasagar.

    Yesterday‘s episode was about a boy who has been thrice orphaned. Eight-year-old Abhi was initially found wandering alone at the Palakkad municipal bus stop in the southern state of Kerala by the local police. Unable to trace his parents, the police handed him over to a local orphanage.

    Abhi was then claimed by a resident of Kollam in Kerala who took care of him for two years. After that, however, the woman found her own child again and the boy was sent back to the orphanage. Seven days after the boy‘s return to the orphanage, a 75-year-old woman read about the boy‘s tale in a local paper and decided to be his sponsor. A few months of her taking him under his wing, the woman‘s husband died. The boy was back in the orphanage after this because the woman‘s children decided she was too old to stay on her own and took her with them. Abhi currently studies in the Ramkrishna Mission Ashram in Trissur.

    Balachandar has a panel of journalists and four Tamil publications that he uses to source material for his shows, says Vidyasagar. The concept was developed inhouse some time in December but actual work on the show has been going on for the last three-and-a-half months, says Vidyasagar. They currently have enough source material with all the background information verified for 75 episodes, he adds.

    Vidyasagar claims that the show has got distributors and advertisers massively excited because of the viewer response. KAN has three main sponsors - retail chain Sabiksha, oil brand Goldusimer and FMCG company Cavinkare for their fairness cream brand Fairever.

    KAN is a one-hour show that airs live Mondays to Fridays from 12:30 pm to 1:30 pm with a repeat telecast from 10 pm onwards.

  • DD1 still leads in overall viewership, Prasar Bharati points out to I&B ministry

    Submitted by ITV Production on Jul 23, 2002
    News Headline

    NEW DELHI: So you thought national broadcaster Doordarshan was a pushover? Data says otherwise. Between 9-11 pm in all TV homes on all days among viewers over 4 years of age, DD1 or National registered the highest TV rating points (TRPs) of 6.5 as well as audience share of 25.5, according to TAM data for the week ended 29 June, 2002. DD National was followed by Star Plus.
    In cable and satellite homes, however, Star Plus and Sony commanded higher TRPs and audience share, while the share of DD1 in C&S homes was only 2.4.

    Between 7 am and 11 pm in all TV homes on all days amongst viewers of four years and above DD1 and DD2 or DD Metro registered the highest TRPs as well as audience share. Star Plus was the other leading channel.

    In C&S homes, for this time period, Star Plus was, however, the leader in terms of TRPs and audience share as compared to other satellite channels.

    The figures have been compiled by TAM and have been forwarded to the ministry of information and broadcasting by the Prasar Bharati only recently to highlight the performance of DD.

    And if you thought that where news is concerned DD still clings to the umbilical cord, then media planners and advertisers may start thinking again. Figures say a different story altogether.

    In all TV homes between 8-9 pm, DD1 commanded the highest TRP of 2.9 as well as audience share of 14.1 amongst all news channels amongst viewers of 15 years and above. The data forwarded to the ministry by Prasar Bharati says, "In C&S homes also DD1 performed better as compared to other private satellite news channels."

    In the news category during the aforementioned time in all homes, according to the TAM data, Aaj Tak had a TRP of 0.1 and audience share of 0.47, Zee News had a TRP of 0.06 and audience share of 0.28 while Star News came in third with a TRP of 0.04 and audience share of 0.2.

    The TAM data was based on a feedback from 27 cities.

  • DD owed over Rs 3.3 billion by 45 errant agencies

    Submitted by ITV Production on Jul 23, 2002
    News Headline

    NEW DELHI: If Doordarshan revenues are on the downswing, then blame it on those who owe DD money and the inadequacy of the current system to recover that money. As many as 45 agencies, including some advertising agencies, owe Doordarshan, the national broadcaster, a total of Rs 3,344.58 million.

    Information and broadcasting minister Sushma Swaraj admitted this to the Lower House of the India Parliament (Lok Sabha) last week.

    Swaraj in her reply to a question on dues owed to DD said in the LS, " The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) in its report for the year ended March 2001 (Transaction Audit Observation No. 2 of 2002) has referred to systematic deficiencies and procedural lapses in the billing practices of commercial programmes of DD. It has highlighted that Rs. 33445.84 lakhs (Rs 3,344.584 million) is outstanding against 45 agencies."

    The minister further said that the CAG report is under examination by the ministry in consultation with Prasar Bharati, the autonomous body that oversees the functioning of DD and All India Radio.

    The minister did not reveal whether the 45 errant agencies were still being allowed to produce programmes for DD whose total revenues revenues in the financial year 2001-02 ended March 31, 2002 stood at just Rs 6,152.1 million, slightly down from the previous year.

    Prasar Bharati officials had admitted to indiantelevision.com some time back that there is a "cash flow problem". This cash problem has resulted in some people not getting their dues.

    It had also been said that the Prasar Bharati is in the process of signing an MoU with the government that will facilitate release of funds from the government in two tranches.

    Meanwhile, it has also come to light that DD1 is setting up more studio complexes in the country over the next two years.

    Nine studios are, at present, under implementation in various parts of the country.

    The studio projects are underway at Warrangal (Andhra Pradesh), Hissar (Haryana), Rajouri (Jammu & Kashmir), Calicut (Kerala), Patiala (Punjab), Gangtok (Sikkim), Coimbatore and Madurai (Tamil Nadu) and Delhi.

    And if there was any hope for the revival of the DD News channel, the optimists can take a break. Swaraj has now made it public in Parliament that "at present there is no proposal to start a news channel."

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