MUMBAI: With the first phase of digitisation through excluding Chennai, the process of launching targeted channels has begun in the right earnest with The Walt Disney Company India making its preschool channel, Disney Junior, available in the Indian market.

Targeted at 2-7 age group, the pre-dominantly English channel will also have content in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu.

Launched on 15 October, the subscription-led channel has been priced at Rs 13.3 on analogue cable and Rs 5.62 on digital networks. The ad-free channel will complete Disney?s kids network comprising Disney Channel, Disney XD and Hungama.

Disney Junior, previously Playhouse Disney, began as a one and a half hour preschool programming block on Disney Channel in 2006. The channel is available across 144 countries in 21 languages.

Disney UTV executive director and Disney kids network business head Vijay Subramaniam feels that the launch of Disney Junior will fill in the need gap.

"Disney Junior will have content that will be fun and imagination but at the same time will add value by helping in developing life skills amongst the kids because 2-7 is a very tender age. It complements the current offering that Disney has in India," said Subramaniam, who will steer the four-channel kids network.

"After extensive research we found that the 2-7 age-group has its own set of programming needs which is different from 7-14 age-group. The research also showed that kids would love to watch theme-based fun stories," he added.

Subramaniam says that the channel has been kept ad-free because the target audience is very young and requires a lot more responsibility in terms of the kind of ads that can be aired.

The channel is currently present on major multi-system operators like Hathway, InCable, Den, GTPL in Gujarat and Fastway Cable Network in Punjab. As of now it doesn?t have a presence on any of the DTH platforms.

Disney will be focussed on top eight cities in the initial phase with a special thrust on the Hindi Speaking Markets. Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Chandigarh Bengaluru, Chennai and Bengaluru will be the core markets for Disney Junior.

"The reason why we are focusing on the Hindi Speaking Markets in the initial phase is because we have a strong presence in that market. However, we also have three Southern cities as our core market outside of HSM in phase 1," Subramaniam explained.

Broadcasters are placing bets on the fast growing kid?s genre which is expected to yield good results in an addressable system. Recently, Zeel had entered the kid?s genre with the launch of its edutainment channel ZeeQ targeted at 4-14 kids.

ZeeQ will be a subscription-driven channel particularly since it has a strict ad policy wherein it won?t carry cola ads or the ones promoting junk food.

MUMBAI: The Twenty20 cricket Indian Premier League (IPL) governing council has terminated the contract with its Hyderabad franchisee Deccan Chargers, ending the ambitious journey of the promoters of Deccan Chronicle Holdings who were dreaming of extending their core media business to other lines of growth opportunities including the high-profile cricket property.

The Council took this extreme step late Friday night on grounds of a breach of contract. The decision was taken at an emergency IPL governing council meeting in Chennai, it is learnt. The final call was taken by BCCI President N Srinivasan.

IPL will now call for bids for a new franchise on Saturday.

The termination of the Deccan Chargers contract is as surprising as the decision of the team owner DCHL on Thursday to reject the sole bid it received from PVP Ventures Ltd to buy the franchisee for Rs 9 billion.

BCCI?s working committee was expected to decide on the fate of Deccan Chargers at its scheduled meeting on Saturday.

Deccan Chargers had rejected the sole bid on grounds of unacceptable payment terms. PVP Ventures had offered to pay Rs 4.50 billion in cash and the remaining in instalments but without providing bank guarantees. The bank lenders of DCHL were insisting upon bank guarantees.

The BCCI, in a statement on Thursday, had said the bid by PVP Ventures met its eligibility and suitability criteria. "The bid was then reviewed by Deccan Chronicle Holdings Limited which, in its discretion and with no role being played by BCCI, rejected the bid on the basis of the payment terms offered by the bidder."

Also read:

Sole bid for Deccan Chargers rejected

MUMBAI: Raj Television Network, which operates 12 channels in five languages, has reported its net profit rose 71.66 per cent to Rs 32.1 million in the quarter ended 30 June from Rs 18.7 million a year earlier.

Sales of the Chennai-based television network rose 23.44 per cent in the first quarter to Rs 162.7 million in the quarter ended June 2012 from Rs 131.8 million a year earlier.

Raj?s expenses rose to Rs 120.13 million during the quarter from Rs 111.15 million due to an increase in cost of revenues to Rs 62.95 million from Rs 53.91 a year earlier.

Raj TV Network has five channels in its Tamil bouquet spanning across general entertainment, music and news. It has two channels each in Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada, mainly in the news and music genre. The network also has a Hindi channel, Raj Parivar.