Sri Adhikari Brothers Television Network Ltd (SABTNL) has signed a joint venture agreement for animation software with the US based ETIAM EMedia Inc which is an information technology solutions company. As per the contract, the JV company will set up state-of-the-art studios to develop animation graphics, animated cartoons and animated feature films along with providing 2D and 3D technology and digital imaging for content and film production.
The company is negotiating with various studios in US and Canada to provide animation software for the studio. Sri Adhikari Brothers‘ forthcoming television channel Sabe TV will benefit from the studio as it will get animation content for it.

SABTNL will own 26% stake in the venture while the rest will be held by ETIAM EMedia and private investors and is expecting a revenue generation of $5-10 million in a couple of months from this project.

The Advertising Club Bombay unleashed on 31 March, the Abby 2000 awards for excellence in creative advertising which attracted 4,109 entries. Oglivy & Mather (O&M) swept the awards ceremony with 48 points.

It walked away with 32 gold and silver Abbies, including the Campaign of the Century for its advertising work on spreading the chocolate eating habit amongst Indian adults for Cadbury. No other agency came even near the halfway mark of O&M‘s tally but those that put up some sort of fight include Contract Advertising (14 points) and Mudra Communications (seven points).

O&M and Enterprise Nexus bagged Gold Abbies for Castrol Scootex 2T and The Times of India (One man‘s burden) campaigns respectively in the ‘Consumer Products‘ section of the Cinema/TV category. The Silver Abby in the same category was awarded to O&M and HTA for Pond‘s Blackhead Removal Strips (Lady Bug) and Pepsi (Yeh Dil Mange More) campaigns respectively.

The classic movie channel, TNT, has been rechristened asTCM or Turner Classic Movies from 2 April.
The channel owned by the Turner Entertainment Networks Asia Inc, has been renamed to create a seperate identity for itself and to distinguish itself from the Cartoon Network and TNT brand both of which were spoken in the same breath.

The channel will now have a fresh treat for its viewers and show at least 40 new classics which have never been telecast in the Asia Pacific region.

Channel Nine chief Kerry Packer had a very busy India visit last week. He announced that he was very firm on making India his numero uno investment place following Australia. India has more advantage than his motherland due to the population which stands at almost a billion as compared to Australia‘s 20 million, he pointed out. India is also known for "brains" and is an emerging superpower in IT, telecom and media sectors. Being kicked by the convergence wave, Packer has lined up interesting investments in India. He has picked up a stake in telecom company Himachal Futuristic Communications Limited (HFCL) at a cost of Rs 11,000 million. On 27 March 2000, he joined hands with the blazing broker Ketan Parekh and HFCL chief Vinay Maloo to set up a Rs 11 billion venture capital fund - KVP Ventures. He has already invested close to Rs 700 million in four Indian software and dotcoms ventures. These include the cricket portal cricketnext.com, Omega Portals Ltd‘s children portal mykindasite.com, Hexaware Technologies and Chennai based Radiant Software.

Packer is closely observing the Broadcasting regulations which do not allow majority stake of foreign players in Indian media companies. He is likely to pick up small stakes in media and entertainment companies thus staying in tune with the government policies. Talks were already on to introduce a sports channel in India and the Aussie tycoon met up with the Sahara Group boss Subroto Roy. The group recently launched a general entertainment channel in India. The sports channel will be directly pitched against ESPN and Star Sports.

What is to be seen is whether Packer succeeds in India which has a presence of giants like Subhash Chandra and his arch rival Murdoch who‘s recent India visit unleashed his new ambitions for this region. It will be a wait and watch scenario in which the general consumer will more or less benefit.

Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has invited the entertainment industry to come up with suggestions to help develop Maharashtra as a bigger player in the entertainment industry. While speaking at the FICCI seminar in Mumbai yesterday, Deshmukh said he would like suggestions from captains of industry to take his state forward.
"This region should be developed as a satellite hub," he pointed out. "I see earth stations coming up to make this as a centre of activity for television."

He added that his government was going to come up with a package to allow for the setting up of cinema multiplexes in the state. "We are examining what the other states are doing on this front. Top of our minds is making the sector viable."

He added that his government was working on setting up a new training institute for film and television in the state.