In House Productions is in a fever of activity these days.

Flinging itself seriously into the TV software race, it has branched out into all kinds of programming, leaving no genre untouched in a bid to get the revenues rolling in.

The staid five-year-old company floated by Sudesh ‘Mani‘ Iyer is targeting hitting the number one position within the next two years, says Sameera Kohli, head of business development.

Two celebrity-based shows - both of which aired on Sony Entertainment - got loads of media attention for divergent reasons. While the Sekhar Suman-hosted Movers and Shakers did well while it was on air, the gameshow Jeeto Chhappar Phad Ke - hosted by filmstar Govinda - fell on its face despite all efforts to push it.

Now In House is moving into the safer territory of soaps. Jayate, a serial based on the life of cops, will go on air end-December on Sahara TV. A lot of research precedes the making of the serial that explores the human side of the police station and the personnel in uniform who man it. Irfan Khan and Irawati Harshe constitute the central protagonists.

The formula seems to be working. Mudivu Ungal Kaiyal, an interactive show made by In House on the lines of Aap jo bole haan to haan, aap jo bole na to na, now in its fifth week on Sun TV, is likely to be made into two more languages. Katha Kathi, a serial on rural stories by renowned Marathi authors, was number two for a long while on Alpha Marathi till it went off air. The production house is now making a celebrity interview show for the Durga Pooja season for Alpha Bengali, focusing on Bengalis who have shifted out of the native state.

For the present, however, mega celebrity shows like Movers and Shakers and JCPK are out, thanks to the recession and the multiple hassles of personality management. "Today, prime time across all channels is full of soaps", points out Kohli, justifying In House‘s current love affair with the genre. "However", she insists, "We are more in the quality game rather than the numbers game," stressing that the focus would still remain on producing well made programmes rather than just TRP raking shows. The company has set its sights on the regional channels, as "that is where the market is developing right now."

A one-hour horror serial that aired on Zee	The frenetic pace that has been set in motion is the result of the efforts of the team, headed by Uday Sinhwala, who took over a few months ago. The results of the new programming strategy will start reaping dividends shortly, says Kohli. In House has maintained a 35 per cent growth since its inception in 1997, she says. Although revenues that hovered around Rs 250 million last year may not see
an equivalent spurt at the end of this fiscal, the company is nevertheless maintaining a stable growth, she says.

In House has already canned 1,200 hours of programming and plans to produce 300 more this year. With state-of-the-art infrastructure including an air-conditioned studio rented out to B4U, a chroma studio, linear and non-linear editing bays and dubbing and preview theatres, it is now a ‘complete production house‘.

‘Till death do us part‘. From next month this statement will be put to a severe test when the Star World channel starts showing ‘Temptation Island‘. The one-hour reality show will start on 22 November and will occupy the 10 p.m. slot on Thursday‘s.

Four couples who are engaged are shipped off to a Caribbean island where 26 devastatingly good looking single people dressed in the most provocative manner will do their best to break up the relationship. The charm and attraction of the show is that if the relationship is rooted in rocky ground the flaws will turn up sooner rather than later. This will put a lot of strain on the participants and the viewer sitting in the comfort of his living room gets perverse pleasure from watching this sexual and emotional circus.

Show host Mark L. Walberg

The show is hosted by Mark L. Walberg who acts as a moderator. According to A.C. Nielsen ratings the first episode in the U.S attracted an average of 16.1 million viewers. The second episode had viewership of 17.6 million.

Chennai based animation major Pentamedia Graphics Ltd (PGL) may be facing difficulties in other areas but that did not put a spoke in the formal launch of its kids channel Splash today.

Targeted at children below 14, Splash is a free-to-air 24-hour digital channel promoted by Intellivision, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pentamedia.

Test transmission of the channel began on August 17 as a seven-hour block from 2:30 pm to 9:30 pm.

Among the shows the channel is showcasing are Splash-o-Paedia and Splash In, two programmes that explore facts and examine current affairs and are anchored by children. These two shows will be aired on Sundays at 9.30 pm and 10.30 pm respectively.

Splash will be the first channel to kickstart with India-specific animated programmes like Pot Pourri and India Folk Tales. While Pot Pourri takes a look at Indian culture and art, India Folk Tales will feature interesting tales with engrossing plots and deep moral and philosophical values.

The channel has also lined up Casper, the friendly ghost on weekends at 9 am and Splash Busters a movie block for the movie buff. The channel promises to air Hollywood blockbusters like Back to Future I,II and III, Flintstones, Junior and The Nutty Professor.

According to reports, Rs 100 -120 million has been sunk into the venture and Pentamedia hopes to achieve revenues of Rs 140 million in the first year of operations. The channel has hired transponder space on Intelsat so as to target the markets in neighboring countries as well.

Six-month-old infotainment channel Channel Guide is all set to enter a new field of ‘Satellite Video Delivery Service‘. Elaborating on the concept, Ravi Deshmukh, COO, Channel Guide Network India Ltd says: "There is a growing demand from advertisers for a cheaper way of reaching local cable operators. There are close to 10,000 cable operators in India. The cost involved in reaching out and delivering hard copy to all of them is huge and beyond the capacity of small and medium scale advertisers.

Channel Guide plans to make use of its satellite service during the night hours (as the channel is off air from 11 pm to nine am) to telecast the advertisements. Cable operators can record advertisements and telecast them on their network on agreed upon terms. "We have agreements with almost all the cable operators and will have one monitoring agent for every 100 cable operators who will monitor their performance."

The advertiser will decide the area he wants to cover and accordingly inform Channel Guide. The advertisements to be telecast will be given to the channel. The area monitoring agent will in turn inform the respective cable operators, who will then record the signals and show it on the network at the specified time.

Advertising rates are fixed depending on the number of connections and the area for each cable operator, giving advertisers the option to opt for the optimum mix of advertising budget and target customer. The revenues will first go to the channel which will pay the cable operators through the agents.

"They (advertisers) can even change the advertisement seven days before telecast, a provision not possible in other advertising options. In fact, we are studying a proposal to start uplinking from India, which will reduce the seven-day minimum to one day. This is likely to be through by January next," says Deshmukh.

Commenting on Channel Guide‘s position, he says: "We have reached five million C & S homes. A paid advertisement service called ‘Channel Guide Exclusive‘ will start this month," he said, but refused to divulge the name of the channels that have agreed to advertise on Channel Guide. Apart from the broadcasters, film and music companies are expected to use the channel as an advertising medium.

Regional language programming, slotted in the 8-9 am band, will also start from this month, says Deshmukh.

The company is also looking at content syndication for programming and giving it to small regional print publications. "We receive programming data for almost all channels, while small publications die to get the data. We can provide them the same," he says.