First there was cine heartthrob Hrithik Roshan on Star‘s Rendezvous With Simi Garewal. Now Sony has gone two up, and lined up three shows about Tinseltown‘s top hunk, scheduled to air between 31 March and 23 April 2001.

The first of the three programmes, The Roshans - Hrithik Live in Concert, will be aired on 31 March on SET while the other two episodes about the making of the star will be screened on 16 and 23 April respectively.

The concert is a celebration of 50 stellar years of the Roshan family in the film industry: director and former actor Rakesh Roshan, Filmfare Award-winning music director Rajesh Roshan and Hrithik Roshan himself. In the concert, Rakesh Roshan reminisces on his time in the film industry, from when he joined till the launch of his son Hrithik in the film Kaho Na Pyaar Hai, which he directed.

The highlight of the show will be Hrithik Roshan‘s stage dances. Captured by 17 cameras, he will be performing different numbers from his three films, Kaho Na Pyaar Hai, Fiza and Mission Kasmir. The songs include Sitaroon Ki Mehfil, Kaho Na Pyaar Hai, Pyaar Ki Kashti Mein, Aaja Mahiya, Bhumbro, and Rind Poshmaa.

Of the three programmes, the remaining two-part series traces Hrithik Roshan‘s journey from childhood till the day he picked up the Filmfare Best Actor award for his debut film Kaho Na Pyar Hai, which was released last year.

Says Hrithik Roshan‘s sister-in-law Farah Khan, vice president - production and chief creative head, Numero Uno International Ltd which produced these programmes: "The idea is to let people know that Hrithik Roshan is not an overnight star as the media has projected him to be, but instead a lot of hard work has gone behind his success."

Hrithik is the only star son who was financially broke most of the time, who would stammer while talking and was an extremely introverted person. Quite unlike the star he is today, she quips.

Sony is leaving no stone unturned when it comes to promoting the show. At the moment, Rs 10 million is being spent for promos over the next 15 to 20 days apart from in-house promos aired on television, says Kacon Sethi, executive vice-president, marketing and sales. Apart from that, they are still in the process of working on the post telecast ad campaign for Hrithik Mania. "We are building up pre-campaign and post campaign publicity," says Sethi.

The channel has a one year contract with Numero Uno for the telecast of two airings of the series.

Sony has roped in Coke as the third partner for the series. Hometrade.com is the major sponsor, among others, for the show which will be aired in 123 countries across the world. Ad rates have been pegged at Rs 350,000 to 400,000 per ten second spot, which should fetch the channel somewhere in the region of Rs 70 million.

And this is just the beginning. Sony promises six more such shows with "real big stars".

In a bid to get rid of some of the negative publicity that its association with Bharat Shah has got it, the B4U Television group has gone in for a bout of restructuring. It is in the process of transferring all its businesses from B4U Multimedia (earlier VIP Enterprises, a firm owned by Bharat Shah) to B4U Television Networks, a company owned by a Mauritian firm (which has Lakshmi Mittal, Gokul Binani, and Kishore Lulla as its owners).

Says B4U Television Network Ltd CEO Ravi Gupta: "We had initially floated B4U Television Networks but our investment bankers advised to instead find a profit making company as a special purpose vehicle to enable us to raise funds from the public. After due diligence, they opted for the Bharat Shah promoted VIP Enterprises, which was renamed as B4U Multimedia. Now with the crisis we have decided to revert everything back to the earlier company B4U Television Networks under advise from our investment bankers once again.."

The restructuring has meant that Gupta has been given additional responsibility. Earlier he oversaw primarily the India operations; now the entire B4U global activities have come under his belt. Among the markets he will be responsible for: UK, Africa, West Asia, and the US.

This one is for cable TV operators who are looking at providing value-added services to their subscribers. And it is coming courtesy Aegis Broadband, which has launched iVision, a set-top appliance which incorporates a cable TV tuner for "in the clear" television programming with access to authorised premium TV services and Internet capabilities.

Connectors facilitate the interconnection of iVision with other appliances such as home computers, printers and cable modems, a company release says.

"The iVision is an innovative merging of television with the capabilities of the Internet for a whole new viewing experience. The iVision facilitates enhanced revenue opportunities for cable operators by allowing television viewers to access the Internet without purchasing a PC," says D George Stathakis, president and CEO of Aegis Broadband.

The iVision is based on Aegis Broadband‘s SIGMA 4000 series, a highly respected conditional access technology with the encoding and decoding functions of a Premium TV system. The control system interface of the iVision is backward compatible with Aegis 4500 decoders and iBOSS Control System.

The iVision supports the standard POP3 and SMTP e-mail protocols and features the option of alternate languages and translations. Standards based HTML environment allows easy customization of applications such as a TV program Guide, Stock Ticker, or News and Sports.