FREMANTLE GETS GOVERNMENT NOD TO TAKE OVER LOCAL FIRM

Fremantle India has got the go-ahead from the Foreign Investments Promotion Board to up its equity stake in its joint venture Purabpaschim Pvt Ltd from 51% to 100%. Fremantle India will be investing another Rs 10 million for this purpose and the Indian company will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fremantle.

TV-18 TO FOCUS ON CNBC ASIA

Production company TV-18, which has been a content and airtime marketing partner with CNBC Asia, is totally aligning itself with the channel. TV-18 will be increasing the Indian content on the south Asian feed for CNBC Asia and the arrangement between the two may result in a joint venture with equal equity being distributed amongst the two.

NDTV BAGS BBC BUSINESS PROGRAM

As a result of the realignment of TV-18 with CNBC Asia, Delhi production company NDTV has bagged the contract to produce a weekly India specific business program, India Business Report (IBR) from BBC World. TV-18 had produced IBR for more than four years for BBC World. IBR will be telecast in its new avatar on the news channel from July.

SOFTWARE PRODUCER WANTS SATELLITE CHANNEL

TV software production house Shri Adhikari Brothers has set its sights on launching a Hindi entertainment satellite television channel along the lines of Zee TV and Sony Entertainment Television. The company says it will launch the channel in association with a foreign investor.

BiTV RIDES INTO TROUBLE

BiTV, which runs satellite television channel TVi, is facing trouble on several fronts with creditors knocking at its doors. Finance company Times Guaranty has approached the Delhi High Court seeking to liquidate its assets as it has defaulted on a payment of Rs 12.7 million to it in July 1998. Times Guaranty had been given post-dated cheques by BiTV promoter Ashok Advani for the phased repayment of the dues. The cheques had since been dishonoured by the company's bankers. The channel management is also facing the ire of employees - both existing and former - who have filed cases against it or issued legal notices to it for non-payment of salaries and dues. Managers say that the channel is facing a severe financial crunch and has asked for some more time to clear its outstandings.

INDUSTRY BODY SETS UP MEDIA PANEL

Leading industry association, the Centre for Indian industry, has constituted a media committee. The panel is to be headed by Zee Network chairman Subhash Chandra and it will take up issues faced by companies in this sector with the government.

TELECOM DEPARTMENT PROPOSES FIBRE OPTIC NETWORK WITH RAILWAYS

The department of telecom (DoT) has proposed that the Indian Railways should work jointly with it for a nationwide fibre optic network. This will help it compete against long-distance telecom service providers when the sector is opened up to private companies on 1 January 2000. DoT says the Railways should allow it to lay optical fibre along its tracks to form a nationwide network as its own telecom network would prove insufficient to meet its future needs. The Railways had recently floated a tender recently calling private companies to participate in a similar telecom infrastructure project.

AIRPORTS AUTHORITY TO FLOAT TENDER FOR SATCOM PROJECT

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) is soon to float a global tender to implement a Rs 620 million satellite communications project. Under this, 80 very small aperture terminals (V-Sats) are to be installed at functional airports across the country. The AAI has approached Isro to use C-band transponders on the Insat series of satellites for the V-Sats and has also got in touch with the department of telecom for allocation of the required bandwidth. It will also install an additional four radar as part of the project taking the total radar at its airports to 14 nationally.