Confirming
the report on indiantelevision.com last month (24 December
2001 to be exact), the Ramoji Rao owned Eenadu Television
Network announced today that it was all systems go for
the launch of its six new regional language channels
on Sunday, 27 January.
The four major Hindi-speaking states of Uttar Pradesh,
Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan will each have a
separate channel along with two channels servicing Orissa
in the east and Gujarat in the west. The launch of the
six channels will see ETV emerge as the "largest television
network in the country cutting across linguistic boundaries,"
an official release states. With the launch of the six
channels, ETV Network will have a total of 11 regional
channels including Telugu, Kannada, Bangla, Marathi
and Urdu.
Programmingwise, the ETV Network's is claiming a unique
feature - Annadata, a programme wholly devoted
to the farming community. Annadata will provide
exclusive fare for each state it caters to and will
function as a daily guide for farmers in the respective
regions it covers.
All the channels are digital, free-to-air and transmitted
from the earth station located at Ramoji Film City in
in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh and beaming
off the Insat 2E satellite.
Other regional players include the six Zee Alpha channels,
the Tara bouquet of four channels, RITV’s two channels
and ETC’s Punjabi channel. There is of course the Sahara
Group's plans to launch a national news channel and
37 independent city-based regional news stations covering
Uttar Pradesh & Uttranchal, Madhya Pradesh & Chattisgarh,
Rajasthan, Bihar & Jharkhand, National Capital Region
(NCR) and Mumbai. But these are not entertainment channels
but news and current affairs-based.
ETV
forays north of the Vindhyas with six channels next
month
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