Is information and broadcasting minister Sushma Swaraj listening to the pleas of wannabe players that the country should not take the open architecture route on the DTH television front? (All broadcasters have been unanimous that this would make DTH a non-starter.) If one goes by statements being attributed to her, it appears as though she is, though she might well be playing to the gallery in order to keep the groaners at bay.

A local business daily has her reportedly telling reporters that that there was no technology which allowed a set-top box to access any number of DTH services. "At most, two DTH services can be accessed," she had said.

Swaraj, reportedly, made these statements after being taken on a tour of the News Corp owned UK DTH service BSKyB‘s facilities in England. Swaraj had paid a visit to Cannes to promote Indian cinema as leader of an official delegation to the film festival there. She reportedly had a stopover in Britain.

If the statements being attributed to her are true and they do get translated into changes in what are being seen as draconian DTH regulations, some private broadcasters may go ahead with their DTH plans which are in cold storage now. Among them: Zee TV, Star, Sterling Group, and Modi Entertainment.

A senior industry official, however, was not very optimistic about the statements from Ms Swaraj. He pointed out that no private broadcaster has submitted a DTH proposal to the government till date.

And secondly, he added that DTH has currently been relegated to the backburner by both private broadcasters and the government. "The convergence bill (it is likely to be tabled in parliament during the monsoon session) is what the focus is on currently. Circa 2002 is when we will see any action on DTH. And the only serious player I see is VSNL. Being a telecom company and government owned, it is not impacted by the restrictions laid down for broadcasters in the DTH regulations.."

Star Plus continues to reign supreme on the TRP charts. The top eight slots across all satellite channels belong to it, a company release states, quoting the latest AC Nielsen TAM ratings for the week ending 27 May.

Looking at the TAM ratings as a whole, Star Plus has reached an all time high with 37 programmes in the top 50. Star Plus‘ 24-hour share is 9.9 per cent - the highest ever, the release states.

And it is Star Plus‘ two superhit soaps, Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi and Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki which have carved out the top eight positions. Positions 1 to 4 have been taken by Kyunki... with the Thursday 24 May episode being the highest with a 14.7 per cent viewership. For Kahaani... the Tuesday 22 May episode had the highest viewership coming in at 5 with a 10.9 TRP rating. Both series air four days a week Monday through to Thursday.

So overbearing is the soap saga that this genre of programmes cater for 10 of the top 11 programmes on the list. The only relief (for some of us at least) being Sony Entertainment Television‘s dance-based show Boogie-Woogie at 10 with a 5.5 TRP rating. At 9 is Sony‘s Heena (6.2) while 11 is taken by Zee TV‘s Koshish Ek Aashaa (5.4).

The Amitabh Bachchan hosted gameshow Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC), which now airs thrice weekdays, has not yet slipped completely off the top 10 reckoning. Numbers 12, 13 and 14 belong to it. Interestingly, KBC Junior, which initially was even more popular than the regular KBC, has slipped to 22 on the charts.

Star Plus‘ shares for 12:30 PM to 2:59 PM (afternoon band) jumped to 32 per cent. The programmes doing well in the afternoon are Shagun (3.4) and Sanskruti (3.2), among others. Sonpari, produced by Neena Gupta, is also among the top 20 programmes with a TVR of 4.5, the release adds.

The data is culled from surveys done in the nine major cities - Bangalore, Calcutta, Chennai, Cochin, Delhi, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Kanpur and Mumbai. The data falls under 4+, ABC category for all cable and satellite homes, covering a population of 20,071,000.

InHouse Productions - better known for its big budget large format shows - will be getting down to producing more of the regular bread and butter serials and soaps, Uday Sinhwala, recently appointed chief operating officer (COO), says.

Sinhwala joined the Sudhesh ‘Mani‘ Iyer-promoted InHouse three weeks ago from Nimbus Communications. Sinhwala comes to InHouse after more than seven years of working with Nimbus promoter Harish Thawani in various capacities, the last being as COO.

"Yes InHouse is very much into lavishly mounted big budget shows but we need to expand the genres of programming that we cover. I will be paying more attention now to family serials and such," Sinhwala says. (Another entrant to the burgeoning ranks of the soap producers?).

"We will be targeting more channels with a deeper focus on TV and ad films so that we become a well rounded and complete production house," Sinhwala says.

Well known shows that InHouse has produced are Sony Entertainment Television‘s gameshow Jeeto Chappar Phaad Ke and talk show Movers and Shakers. Inhouse also produces serials for Marathi language channel Alpha Marathi, among others.