MUMBAI: As a tribute to the victims of 26/11, History TV18 will air specials on 26 November from 5:30 pm. The channel will showcase operations related to terrorism in recent times.

The Mumbai special is called ?City Under Siege?. On 26th November 2008, South Mumbai was shaken by a series of terrorist attacks. Several landmarks like the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, Victoria Terminus were hit by bomb blasts and ruthless firing, which took lives of many ordinary people and crippled the city for days.

One of the most notorious events was the besiegement of Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. Black Ops retells this dramatic news story using actual eyewitness accounts, archive footage and drama reconstruction to explain how India?s elite counter-terrorism unit brought the terrorists to task and ended the 59-hour long siege.

?A Perfect Terrorist? looks at David Coleman Headley who successfully deployed the deadliest terrorist attacks on Mumbai on 26th November 2008. Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani militant group with astute military precision, launched the biggest onslaught in the city, leaving hundreds dead and injured. It was unknown for a long time that behind this attack was a shrewd architect of terror, an American citizen in the name of David Coleman Headley ?A Perfect Terrorist? chronicles the story of Headley?s rise from a heroin dealer and US government informant to master plotter of the 2008 attack on Mumbai.

?Taking Down Bin Laden? is about the death of the man behind 9/11. On 1 May 2011 the army of elite force of U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group invaded dangerous boundaries and fortified hideouts to detain and eradicate the most wanted man on the earth- Osama Bin Laden.

The special will look at Operation Neptune Spear and offer details of sophisticated intelligence, complicated decision making and specials ops planning that ultimately led to the killing of Al Qaeda?s leader.

?Targeting Bin Laden? is an illustration of the operation to find and kill the dreaded terrorist mastermind. The series captures the prominent White House insiders, including US President Barack Obama?s first documentary interview about the operation. From the anxiety-drenched minutes in the White House Situation Room to the deadly stairwells of Bin Laden?s secret labyrinth, cinematic dramatisations takes viewers deep inside one of the most important moments of our era, as we see the US Navy Seals come face to face with the most wanted man in history.

MUMBAI: While foreign faces are not a novelty anymore for Bollywood, scouting for talent from another country definitely is. In an exercise infotainment broadcaster History TV18 visits Australia to find the next Bollywood sensation. The show kicks off tonight at 10 pm.

The series, ?Bollywood Star? captures fellow Australians? desire to achieve fame, glamour, stardom and everything that Bollywood stands for. The four-part series ends with an Australian seizing the ultimate glory - a part in Mahesh Bhatt?s movie.

Under the scrutiny of eyes of the judges, Shiamak Davar, Anupam Chopra, John Abraham and Mahesh Bhatt himself, hundreds of Australian Bollywood-o-philes auditioned to compete for the coveted prize.

The four-part series gives an insight into Australia?s Bollywood-loving community and aspirants. In this show, the three judges shortlist twenty-four finalists from hundreds of other hopefuls. The finalists are then flown to Mumbai, where they train under the biggest names the Indian film industry has to offer. The preparation for the Bollywood life also includes living the everyday Indian life, combined with living and working in the Dharavi slums of Mumbai.

With a 360-degree cross-cultural training, the series tests the emotional and physical limits of the finalists. Ultimately, one Australian walks away with the life-changing prize of a role in a Bollywood film with Vishesh Films.

MUMBAI: For infotainment channel History TV18, the pace of the first year has been dictated by regional-language feeds, heavy marketing with Bollywood superstar Salman Khan as the face, carriage agreements with cable and DTH networks and meticulous study of ratings to see where the viewership expansion is taking place.

The results are palpable. The first year of History TV18 happened to be in a period when the share of infotainment genre in the television space, according to TAM data c&s4+ all India, grew by 37 per cent to 1.4 per cent in genre share (Jan - September 2012) from 1.1 per cent a year earlier. The increase in the share of infotainment was in part because competition too beefed up content and launched more local language feeds.

History TV18 GM marketing Sangeetha Aiyer notes that while progress has been made there is a way to go to achieve what it has done in the US. "History is a leader in the US and other key markets of the world. We are yet to achieve that in the India market."

In terms of the way forward, she says that the first key step to consolidate ratings is to strengthen the distribution footprint. Expansion in 1mn+ town class therefore will be important. The channel is also pinning its hopes on digitisation as the factual genre gets significant contribution to viewership from digital cable and DTH platforms. "So we are ensuring that we focus on our presence and availability through these broadcast platforms."

Along with focussing on connectivity and availability to be optimal and accelerated, parallely the broadcaster is also working on the programming strategy and content mix. "A few subgenres within the factual entertainment genre have shown traction for us," said Aiyer.

She elaborates that the sub genres that will be focussed on going forward are 1) Action/ adventuer/ thrills; 2) informative programming packaged in an entertaining way like The Works, Food Tech, etc that are character driven; and 3) India centric content. The aim is to continue to strengthen this sub genre. Another type of content that is working is topical stuff which will more be like a tactical strategy to get the much needed spikes, she points out.

One main issue for this channel like others in the English space is to build appointment viewing. "More and more we are also moving to stripping content as a strategy. That seems the key to build some amount of pattern for appointment viewing in this genre which is otherwise snacking in nature," she says.

Earlier A+E Networks had a JV with Fox International Channels for The History Channel. When the JV concluded the channel was rebranded as Fox History and Entertainment. Subsequently, the channel moved into the lifestyle space and was rebranded as Fox Traveller leaving room for the new History TV18 channel.

Aiyer said that one of the biggest challenges faced was the brand name. "Unfortunately, since the channel already had a presence in India, people had misconceptions that the new History TV18 channel would be all about History in the real sense of the word. Also because of its name, there was a perception that the content will be about date, text bookish, documentary-style, preachy etc. That was the main challenge."

That was one of the main reasons that the channel used Salman Khan as a brand ambassador in order to dispel this. This move was unusual and the deal with Khan was for one year. The tagline ?Kuchh Naya Dekho, History Bante Dekho? aims to encompass the breadth of content and themes that History brings to Indian audiences - History here is not just about the past, it?s as much about people making history today.

Talking about the difference between the new History TV18 channel vis-?-vis what the earlier avatar was, she said that the focus is on contemporary; it is about action and adventure. It is about people making History every day. "And through this unique and exciting partnership with Salman Khan, we have managed to reach out to a number of mainstream viewers we could reach otherwise."

"With such a strong positioning we are clearly differentiated from competition and our strategy is more proactive in nature and in line with our strategy of growing the genre. The channel was launched with universal themes that use the premise of history but are entertaining, engaging and thrilling and would appeal to a very wide audience, including younger demographics and also discerning audiences."

More Languages: The other thing that History TV18 did was to launch in eight languages. No other broadcaster in this genre is available in so many languages. Asked if History TV18 was maybe a bit too aggressive on the language feed front, she noted that being present in different languages was one of its key differentiators which helped grow the entire genre. "It has been one of our greatest strengths. Moreover, we wouldn?t have ventured into ?languaging? if the cost-benefit aspect didn?t work out."

Localisation has played a key role in building brand connect with ?The Greatest Indian? initiative. This was a search to find the greatest Indian since Mahatma Gandhi. This gave the channel the chance to use social media in an effective way. "We got over 2 crore votes coming through missed calls and online. The campaign also sustained a healthy engagement on Social Media platforms reaching over 20 lac Facebook users through viral content. Comparisons and discussions followed on Twitter with hashtags related to the initiative trending consistently and reaching over 200,000 users daily."

What is the roadmap in this regard going to be? "Our aim is to have one local show a quarter. We have also acquired shows that were shot in India like ?Passage Through India?, ?India on 4 Wheels?. Having said that, it has been a mix of shows like ?Pawn Stars? that have delivered," Aiyer said.

Now as part of its special anniversary celebration, the broadcaster has introduced ?History?s Hot Shots?, a recap of some series aired on the channel in the last 1 year. The channel is airing shows like ?IRT Deadliest Roads?, ?Food Tech?, ?Pawn Stars - Season 2?, ?Ax Men - Season 4?, ?Around the World in 80 Days? and ?Chasing Mummies?.

More channels in pipeline? No decision has been made yet about more channel launches. Like other broadcasters, the JV is looking to see how digitisation pans out. The priority is to establish History TV18 as the flagship channel from the JV and watch it grow the genre, market share and revenues.

Ad market scenario: On the ad revenue front, Aiyer says that the challenge is that despite delivering five times the GRPS of other English genres like news and English GEC, the revenue that the Factual Entertainment genre has is probably one fifth that of English News. It stands at around Rs 2 billion.

"This will most probably need a more concentrated effort by the genre itself and the players thereof to push the agenda of the kind and number of audiences its delivers. We at History TV18 continue to push this agenda with trade and advertising fraternity," says Aiyer.

Dwelling on the difference that the channel has made in revenue terms, Aiyer said that this genre had maximum contribution from FMCG in the past. "This is an established rule that we have challenged. We have tried and have succeeded in bringing on board other categories actively like banking, telecom, consumer durables, etc. Our objective this year is to become the number two player in terms of revenue and so far we are on track for the same."

She adds that the leader in the genre needs to take a call on pushing effective rates.

In terms if the slowdown, Aiyer notes that the belief is that if one gets the fundamentals right, everything else will fall in place. "We know we have a great product offering and believe there is a strong market for us. Moreover the breadth of our audiences and advertisers provides a bit of an edge or cushioning as compared to categories and genres that are independent or have fewer advertiser segments."

Offering a media buyer?s take, VivaKi Exchange CEO Mona Jain says that History has given some amount of incremental reach. "It provides cost effective opportunities to target SEC A,B audiences. clients that use the infotainment genre have added History to the media mix. Using Salman Khan got them instant reach. Also interest levels rose. Now the content has to speak for itself. Viewership will depend on the kind of properties that they have."

The effective rate on this genre is around Rs 1300 per 10 second spot. "It will be difficult for them to take this up. This category has become competitive with many players. I expect this genre to grow by around 10 per cent this year. i don?t think that the slowdown will affect it. The slowdown is having a bigger effect on big ticket properties where advertisers are hesitating and waiting. But for cost effective channels that provide a good entry point like History that will not be the case."

Equal split in ad-subscription revenue possible: With digitisation, niche broadcasters hope to get a fairer share in subscription revenue.

Aiyer feels that with digitisation there is the chance that the split between advertising and subscription revenue could be 50:50 three years down the line for this genre if the digital timeline is stuck to. She maintains that the channel is on track to achieve breakeven in two years time.

"While still a niche genre in India, factual entertainment is a growth genre. It is the only genre that has seen a year-on-year growth 2008 onwards. In fact, it has a 29 per cent growth in viewership (2008 versus 2010). We believe it has potential to grow more and become a relatively mainstream genre. And digitisation will provide an impetus to the same," says Aiyer.

MUMBAI: Red Bull India has chosen HISTORY TV18 and In.com as official broadcast partners for Red Bull Stratos in India. The channel will broadcast Felix Baumgartner‘s jump live from stratosphere at 5:50 pm today.

After testing for over five years and planning since 2005, Baumgartner will attempt to create history by making the highest and fastest freefall in history. Supported by a team of experts Baumgartner plans to ascend to 120,000 feet in a stratospheric balloon and make a free fall jump rushing toward earth at supersonic speeds before parachuting to the ground.

The team of experts who built this one-of-a-kind technology include retired United States Air Force Colonel Joseph Kittinger, who holds three of the records Felix will strive to break. Kittinger‘s record jump from 102,800 ft. in 1960 was during a time when no one knew if a human could survive a jump from the edge of space.

Baumgartner has already set a world record during his test jump by successfully jumping from 18 miles / 29 kilometres above the Earth freefalling as fast as a commercial airliner - 536 miles per hour.

MUMBAI: History TV18 will telecast a show titled ?India on Four Wheels? at 9 pm on 20 September. The show will also be aired on CNBC TV18 on 22 September at 9:30 pm.

?India on Four Wheels? is a discovery of a country on the move by two journalists Justin Rowlatt and Anita Rani, who embark on an "epic" road trip across the length and breadth of India. During their voyage crisscrossing cities and rural India, they both encounter and discover the effects of the booming car industry leading them to realise how a country?s economic augmentation is fanning the growth of the car industry.

Rowlatt and Rani start their journey from New Delhi and navigate in two opposite directions, with an aim to meet after three weeks. Rani starts her trip in a new Indian made Mahindra 4x4 jeep, while Rowlatt leaves towards the East in Hindustan Motor?s Ambassador.

Halfway through her journey, Rani reaches Mumbai. She discovers some of the "fastest" and "most dangerous" roads in the country.

Rowlatt, on the other hand, steers his Ambassador on some of the bumpy roads of the country, meets farmers who gets their first taste of motoring and witnesses the effects of burning fossil fuel on precious ecosystems. During his travel, he probes into the darker side of India?s economic revolution, the retrofit of industrialisation on environment and how the majority of people are still cut off from India?s financial prosperity, the channel said.

MUMBAI: Factual entertainment channel History TV18 is launching a new show titled ?Around the World in 80 Ways?.

Starting 18 September, the show will air every Tuesday at 9 pm.

In the show Rob Boston and Dennis Anderson will take a challenging voyage to go around the globe by uncovering 80 unique modes of transportation, without repeating any vehicle.

The 10 part series explores new countries across the globe. The hosts navigate through Brazil, Peru, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Tanzania, Dubai, India, Thailand, and the United States.

The show is produced by Original Productions, a Fremantle Media Company. Thom Beers and Philip D. Segal are executive producers and Jeff Conroy is co-executive producer for Original Productions. Julian P. Hobbs is executive producer for History.

Boston and Anderson?s expedition will also bring them to India. In Mumbai, the two hosts are greeted with "swarming" and "busy" lanes. They score some Tuk Tuks and race their way out on the busy streets. Elephants, ox-carts and other new forms of transportation will eventually take them to their destination - the beautiful Lake Pichola, the statement read.