Thirty-eight days ago the Indian cable, satellite, and terrestrial television, advertising and market research industries received a body-blow with the anonymous release of peoplemeter lists in Mumbai of both the major television viewership tracking agencies AC Nielsen?s TAM Media and ORG Marg?s INTAM.

There was a hue and cry raised with Zee Telefilms broadcasting CEO Sandeep Goyal going so far as to demand the scrapping of the ratings altogether till a countrywide revamp was instituted.

That demand was not accepted but both agencies are currently in the middle of an excercise aimed at revamping their Mumbai lists of respondents and are half way through the exercise.

Ashok Das, president ORG Marg says: "Half of the exercise is over. In the next four weeks the remaining work is expected to be complete. It will take another three to four weeks after that to do other related work. We can expect the new rating lists in the coming two months."

LV Krishnan, CEO of TAM Media Research, when asked as to how far the work had proceeded, responded that the major part of it is over, but would not put a time frame on its completion. "The task is huge and is being carefully done, which requires a lot of time. It is not about just picking up the homes. A lot of research has to be done while selecting the samples."

When asked whether TAM was going to increase the size of the people meter sample, Krishnan says: "We don‘t find any problem with the size of the sample. And adding to the sample will add to costs to a great extent." Krishnan was reluctant to reveal the investment being put in the revamping operation saying that it was an internal affair.

Queried as to whether there would be an increase in the charges because of the heavy expenses the revamping exercise has called for, Krishnan said this "will be decided only after the whole exercise is over." But reading between the lines, it appeared as though subscribers will have to bear some of the costs in the form of revised rates. The industry body (the Indian Broadcasting Foundation) is being consulted while doing the exercise, Krishnan said.

Das also chose to keep his lips zipped on Intam subscription rates, saying that no decision had been taken as yet. "As of now we are going ahead with the present rate cards," he says. He indicated that revisions - if any - would be contemplated only when the next rate card was being drawn up.

Asked whether Zee had chosen to unsubscribe to the ratings reports as had been reported in the media, Das said nothing of the sort had happened. "All our old clients are very much with us and it is just a rumour that a few are going to unsubscribe ." TAM‘s Krishnan gave the same reply.

AC Nielsen as well as ORG Marg will be scrutinising other panels in India, but that would be only as part of a regular exercise. Annually, both the agencies replace 15 to 20 per cent of their respective samples.

INTAM has over 7,000 respondents covering 49 towns and cities while TAM has installed peoplemeters in 3,454 homes, covering 27 cities.

Canadian cable operator Vid?otron has launched its new iLLICO service. This will allow subscribers to send messages using PowerTV‘s email, surf the Internet, chat, and take advantage of Vid?otron‘s local content. This has been made possible thanks to the Scientific-Atlanta digital interactive network, its scalable network software, Explorer? digital set-tops, and PowerTV‘s operating system.

The apparent aim of iLLICO, Scientific-Atlanta and PowerTV technology is to make television the medium through which customers can communicate with the operators. Over 100,000 subscribers of the cable operator‘s system in Quebec will be given the privilege of using the facility first. This is because they are already using Scientific-Atlanta Explorer digital interactive set-tops. The services are available across the entire system that the operator has in place in Quebec and the broadband system features will expand and touch new levels.

Speaking on this Dr Allen Ecker, president of Subscriber Networks, Scientific-Atlanta said: "The network software and operating system are capable of handling the two-way traffic as the use of interactive services grows, with scalability that provides the operator with a high degree of flexibility as they expand their digital footprint. Together, they manage the traffic, deliver the services and enable the cable operator to provide the interactive services that subscribers want, when they want them."

B4U Television Network, which relaunched B4U Entertainment as B4U Movies on 2 October, expects to achieve operating profits of $ 2 million by the end of this financial year from its worldwide operations, CEO Ravi Gupta said today.

Speaking at a press briefing in Mumbai to celebrate the launch of B4U Movies, Gupta said the company was looking at total revenues of $ 20 million this fiscal, with operating costs at $ 18 million.

Gupta said he was targeting a net profit of $ 4 million after amortisation by March 2003.

Referring to B4U Music, Gupta said that the channel had achieved operational profits in the first year itself.

On the issue of the channel‘s encryption, Gupta clarified that it would not be in January 2001 as initially reported to indiantelevision.com. He said he expected B4U Movies to go pay in the second quarter of 2002.

Questioned as to what was the relationship existing between B4U and jailed film financier Bharat Shah, Gupta admitted that a strategic alliance was still in place. He however pointed out that with Shah still in custody, there were a number of issues that were still to be resolved on that front.

B4U Entertainment was launched on 3 September 2000 but failed to make a mark as a Hindi entertainment channel what with the likes of Star, Sony and Zee carving out most of the market share. B4U Movies will not face such problems because it will draw on its main strength - its library of movies (1,000 films in India and overseas rights to 1,600 films), Gupta says.

The B4U Network is promoted by steel magnate L M Mittal, Kishore Lulla and Gokul Binani, all based in the UK. Lulla is also the promoter of Eros International LTD, the largest overseas film distributor and the first to take Hindi movies to the UK and the US.