The Dheeraj Kumar-promoted production house Creative Eye has recently created a new programming cell headed by Roopa Das, former senior executive producer of Sony Entertainment Television.

Das was one of a large number of executives at different levels who quit Sony to join the Manoranjan Aur Kya (MAK) Network, which never got off the ground. She has been appointed as vice-president, programming at CEL. The company has announced that will be inducting more professionals shortly in the newly constituted programming cell. Among those who have already been inducted is Mahesh Badal, who has earlier worked with CMM and STV Enterprises.

The cell has already started working on various genres of programmes including social, suspense thriller, comedy sitcom, an official release states. CEL has commenced the shooting of three new programmes. CEL plans to produce at least six new programmes with the active association of its newly formed programming cell for Doordarshan and satellite channels during the third quarter of 2002-03.

The company, which was one of the major content providers to Doordarshan earlier, but had shifted its focus to satellite TV over the last year due to high telecast fees, has now decided to supply more content to DD again. Creative Eye also recently announced its intent to produce three Hindi feature films in the current fiscal. The company has so far produced more than 1,700 hours of programming that includes social, suspense thrillers, historical and mythological programmes. According to an official release, the current eight hours of programming per week on Doordarshan will be increased to 16 hours in 2002-03.

The ZeeTelefilms Ltd board is scheduled to meet on 18 July to consider and take on record the unaudited financial results for the quarter ended 30 June, 2002, an official release states.

Discovery‘s mission is clear. Build up the audience base by offering content in regional languages. With this objective in mind the channel on Wednesday announced the launch of a Tamil-language broadcast fuelled by the encouraging response to its 24-hour English and Hindi language feeds.

An official release informs that the channels decision to diversify into Tamil was based on a study that showed that Discovery?s viewers who converse in neither English nor Hindi want to watch and understand programmes in their mother tongue. This prompted the channel to move into the region-specific ?mode? and ?speak the viewer?s language?. The release states that the channel will maintain the relevance and quality of the content through the use of colloquial and ?viewer-friendly? terms and phrases.
For starters the Tamil broadcast will air in the ?Family Time? timeband from 8 to 10 pm, Monday to Friday, with repeat telecast from 10 am to 12 noon. The channels long term goal is to gradually make the broadcast 24 hours a day. Tamil programmes will concentrate on fact based entertainment programnmes which are based on theme nights. They are History on Mondays, Science on Tuesdays, Forensics on Wednesdays, Health on Thursdays and Special Premieres on Friday.

Speaking on the latest initiative MD Discovery Communications India Deepak Shourie said, ?Discovery in Hindi achieved an enormous jump in viewership for the channel in regions where Hindi is predominant. With Discovery in Tamil, we are confident of attracting a large Tamil-speaking viewer base to the channel and expanding viewership in South India. We decided to begin the Tamil-language broadcast as Tamil Nadu comprises the largest number of cable and satellite television channel viewers in South India. After Tamil, we plan to diversify into more regional languages in South India."

Reports indicate that the Tamil channel will be followed by a Telugu one. Judging by viewers response the channel will consider launching feeds in Malayalam and Kannada.

The release informs that as of now the Discovery Channel is available in 33 languages worldwide. The Tamil-language broadcast reflects Discovery Channel?s international strategy to be accessible to the largest number of people and to showcase high-quality global content in region-specific languages.

Launched in India in 1995, Discovery is today the sixth most-widely distributed channel in India and reaches over 21 million households.

Sumangali Cable Vision (SCV), the Sun Network-owned leading cable distribution company in Tamil Nadu, is expanding its base to add the city of Hyderabad within its servicing area.
"From September, we will start operation in Hyderabad too," SCV‘s chief executive Dayanidhi Maran told indiantelevision.com on the sidelines of a seminar on CAS organised by CETMA in New Delhi today.

Pointing out that at present the company has cable services in six cities in Tamil Nadu, Maran, however, said there are no plans to start operations in North India.

"We have enough on our hands and don‘t want to go to areas where there are already established players," he said. On its cable networks across Tamil Nadu, apart from cable TV, SCV also provides its subscribers net-over-cable for which rates are different depending on the usage and various packages.

Maran, however, was not forthcoming how and from where such huge amounts of money would be raised by MSOs and cable operators. "It would be a huge investment is all that I can say," Maran said.