The impending entry of Disney Channel in the country seems to have shaken the competition out of a stupor.

Archrival Cartoon Network revamped its prime time programming band last week, in a bid to get older audiences hooked to animation. And now, the distant third channel in the reckoning, Nickelodeon is gearing up to face the Disney challenge. Jimmy Neutron is Nick‘s answer to Mickey & Donald‘s imminent official arrival in the country.

Jimmy Neutron:Boy Genius makes his debut on 22 December with a series of one minute animated segments to be followed by music videos from the movie, leading to its TV series premiere later next year. Neutron is Nickelodeon‘s first 3D, computer graphics imagery animated character, and the channel‘s first property to be developed as a simultaneous multi media franchise.

Disney is scheduled to launch all its famous cartoons in Hindi on the proposed 24 hour pay channel. It may use most of its estimated 400 odd hours of its dubbed library, accumulated over four years of airing translated and dubbed shows on DD, Zee and Sony.

Religious channels have been prospering on Indian television for the last couple of years. Aastha, Sanskar, etc Punjabi (with its Gurbani telecast), Maharishi Veda Vision and the MiracleNet are some of the channels which have made their debut. Now there‘s another waiting on the sidelines to make a foray: the Eternal World Television Network (EWTN) Global Catholic Network. The channel‘s management has announced that it will launch a television service for India in the first quarter of 2002. As part of the launch, EWTN will also expand the reach of its television service currently available in Africa.

According to EWTN president Michael Warsaw, the Network has reached an agreement in principle with PanAmSat to move its current Africa channel from the PAS 3 satellite to the recently launched PAS 10 spacecraft. With this shift, Warsaw says this move will not only allow EWTN‘s content to be seen and heard by more than 99 per cent of the Catholic population on the African continent, but will also make both its radio and TV service available to more than 10,000 cable television systems in India.

"Like the Apostle Thomas, who first preached the Gospel in India two thousand years ago," Warsaw notes "EWTN will soon bring that same message to new television and radio audiences throughout this vast region."

The heart of EWTN TV Channel is its show, Mother Angelica Live, hosted by Mother Angelica, which is broadcast before a live audience every Tuesday and Wednesday night. In addition, EWTN offers several live programs including the Daily Mass from the chapel in Irondale, Life on the Rock, a teen and young adult show with host Jeff Cavins, The Journey Home with Marcus Grodi and The World Over with news anchor Raymond Arroyo. The network also airs documentaries, weekly series hosted by leading Catholic theologians, coverage of Church events in the U.S. and abroad, seasonal music specials, the Rosary and other devotional prayer segments.

Asia Global Crossing (AGC) will deploy an ATM service for Australia‘s National Racing Broadcaster, Sky Channel.

The leading pan-Asian telecom services provider says the ATM network will deliver transmission at an access speed of 45 Mbps with a constant bit rate (CBR) of 8 Mbps. The new capability starts from February 2002.

Sky uses its global broadcast network to provide live and exclusive telecasts of Australian and international horse and greyhound events. The ATM service will enable Sky to provide audiences with live transmission of Australian horse races from its premises in French‘s Forest, Sydney to a re-broadcaster in Louisville, Kentucky via a gateway in Los Angeles. Video, voice and data will be delivered on the ATM backbone replacing Sky‘s traditional satellite delivery.

AGC offers broadcasters uncompressed 270 Mbps television broadcast capability and provides transmission speeds up to 1.28 Tbps, while fully resilient hubs ensure automatic global re-routing capability.