MTV SEEKS RAPID EXPANSION IN INDIA

While Channel V is re-engineering itself and introducing Channel V International in the Indian market, rival MTV has other plans up its sleeve. MTV Networks chairman and CEO Tom Freston says that the music channel is planning to launch three new music services for the Indian market. He was speaking at a luncheon organised by Multichannel News International late last month in Chicago.

Freston said that this was being made possible by the fact that the network had managed to get space on the digital pay channel package that Zee TV is developing for the Indian market. While he did not elaborate on which channels would be introduced, it is likely that one of them will be VH-1, whereas the other could be an international feed of MTV.

What the third service could be is anybody's guess but newspapers in India have reported that Zee TV had already managed to sign on kids channel Nickelodeon for its digital service. These reports have neither been confirmed nor denied.