The Indian television industry?s first ever Scriptwriters Workshop and Forum, Qalam 2001, will be held in Mumbai on 20-21 December.
Conceived by Indian Television Dot Com Pvt Ltd as the first event of Qalam, a TV Scriptwriters forum, the workshop will provide attendees an insight into the rudiments of scriptwriting, character development, dialogue writing, the process of getting scripts approved by TV producers and channels, and the pitfalls in the business.

Endorsed by the Film Producers? Guild of India and backed by Balaji Telefilms, Sony Entertainment Television, Star India and B.A.G. Films, the two-day workshop will be unique for the interactivity that has been built into it. Exercises will be allotted to attendees on which they will be provided feedback. For the first time, an eminent scriptwriter and instructor from the Vancouver Film School (Canada), Joyce Thierry is coming down to India to conduct the workshop in co-ordination with leading Indian scriptwriters. Among the eminent film and TV personalities who will address participants are filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, scriptwriters Dr Achala Nagar, Anjana Sood, Ashwani Dhir, Ila Bedi Dutta, Mir Muneer, Rajesh Joshi, Vipul D Shah, Raman Kumar, Vinta Nanda, former Sony programming head Rekha Nigam and actor turned producer Soni Razdan.

The workshop will end with a big bash and a special networking session on the evening of 21 December. Indiantelevision.com is aiming to present a select bunch of bright scriptwriters who will emerge out of the two-day gruelling sessions to the television industry, thus offering a unique opportunity for budding writers to showcase their talents and meet people who count within television -programming heads from TV channels, executive producers, creative directors from production houses and directors. The workshop will be held at Time & Again, Banquet Hall in the northern Mumbai suburb of Andheri (W).

Says Thierry: "I am so excited about the prospect of interacting with Indian scriptwriters. I have been conducting workshops in Canada for some years now and I am looking forward to this experience."

Adds Star Plus creative director Deepak Segal: "Writing is integral to our existence in television because that?s from where our content flows. If you want an engineer you go to an engineering school, but where do you go if you want a scriptwriter? We decided to back Qalam 2001 because it is a first of its kind endeavour to develop writing talent and needs encouragement."

Adds Balaji Telefilms CEO Sanjay Dosi: "The script is the soul of any programme and it is a very creditable step by indiantelevision.com to promote scriptwriters and help them in honing their writing skills and it would go a long way in promoting new talent. The industry needs such kind of initiatives."

Information and television services company Indian Television Dot Com Pvt Ltd has earlier held the Indian Telly Awards 2001, the first ever television industry awards held in July this year. Says indiantelevision.com founder & CEO Anil Wanvari: "There is a paucity of trained television scriptwriters in India. This is a plaint I have often heard from the TV industry. After the Indian Telly Awards 2001, Qalam 2001 is an effort from our company to start what we hope will become de rigueur in television - training."
 

As predicted by indiantelevision.com, ESPN Star Sports today announced an upward revision in their package subscription price from the current Rs 16 to Rs 24, effective January 2002.

Manu Sawhney, managing director of ESPN Software India Private Ltd, while detailing the kind of sports coverage that the channels would be giving in 2002, maintained that the package was being offered "at a price which is amongst the lowest for a sports bouquet anywhere in the world."

Meanwhile, now that the Zee Network has announced a joint venture agreement with Turner International to market and distribute their channels, it should be interesting what price is put on the whole package when their revision is declared.

(See earlier report: Star bouquet to cost Rs 40.50 from next month)

From January Viacom will integrate the UPN and CBS Broadcast Networks under CBS Television Unit. CBS Television also includes Viacom‘s 34 stations; CBS Entertainment, CBS News, CBS Sports; and the network‘s distribution unit, CBS Enterprises.
Viacom is a leading global media company. It‘s well-known brands include CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, and Paramount Pictures.

Viacom‘s president and chief operating officer Mel Karmazin said: "Today‘s announcement is the culmination of a process that began with the merger of Viacom and CBS. With sole ownership and key long-term affiliation agreements in place, and with 2001 upfront and season launches that resulted in higher revenues and ratings, there is no better time to bring UPN together with CBS, which is also enjoying one of the best years in its history."

Through this initiative the CBS Television group believes that it can increase advertising sales while building on its track record of bringing distinctive and successful programming to the screen.

Technology has been as much at the battlelines in Afghanistan as the journalists who reported in the foreground of the bomb-scarred skyline.
Stratos, a satellite communication company claims equal credit for bringing the latest news to homes around the world in the form of television and radio broadcasts on the BBC. It was satellite technology that tided over most journalists in communicating their reports from one of the harshest, barren environments known. BBC Radio Technical Coordinator Keith Wood says using the Inmarsat GAN terminal to access Stratos‘ global network of earth stations has played an essential part in enabling the BBC to report the news as it happens. "As the equipment is fully portable it has allowed us to get in and follow the story close to the front line action in sound and vision at reasonable cost."

Reporting teams based in various locations like Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan used Stratos‘ Satelan service in a variety of ways, allowing them to send back reports in various forms, says an official release. Live video reports were sent daily over the Stratos Satelan service, which provides users with access to Stratos‘ wholly owned global satellite network via a portable GAN terminal and Inmarsat‘s network of satellites. This enabled viewers to witness reporters following the Northern Alliance in its quest to remove the Taliban government.

The method used for sending back the live video reports is to connect a GAN(x) terminal, which provides the user with a 64kb/s ISDN channel, to a customized version of a video phone designed specifically for use on the road and with the GAN terminal, claims Stratos. Reporters have also used a method called Store & Forward, by connecting the terminal to either a Toko or Voyager-lite, allowing the user to record their report, compress it and then forward it on to the news room. Radio reports were filed over the Satelan service, and live two-way radio interviews by connecting an ISDN mixer to the terminal.