DTH adds 2.08 mn subscribers in Q1: Trai

With five private direct-to-home (DTH) operators competing for the subscriber, the total DTH subscriber base has crossed the 15 million mark in India, posing a serious threat to digital cable TV. As per Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai)'s 'Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicator Report' for the quarter ended 30 June 2009, the total number of registered subscribers being served by these private DTH operators had soared to 15.17 million by June end this year.

DTH is, thus, growing at 15.89 per cent quarter-on-quarter. According to Trai, India had 13.09 million registered DTH subscribers on 31 March this year. Cable TV operators, on the other hand, have marginally increased the seeding of set-top boxes (STBs) in the Cas areas of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai during this period. According to Trai, the total number of STBs installed increased to 816,192 in the quarter ended June 2009, up 5.99 per cent as compared to 770,053 STBs in the previous quarter.

Meanwhile, Trai has also released the data on the number of pay-TV channels in India till 30 June. As per the sector watchdog's report based on the data received from 24 broadcasters/distributors across the country, there are 136 pay channels in India. There are a maximum of 166 free-to-air (FTA) and 124 pay channels carried in any particular cable network, as reported by the ulti-system operators (MSOs) to the sector regulator.

Interestingly, the maximum number of channels being carried by any of the reported MSO in digital mode is 262. In analogue form, however, the maximum number of channels being carried by any of the reported MSOs is 100 channels. In the radio business, apart from All India Radio, there are 248 operational private FM Radio stations across India, said Trai. In the three months from April to June, only three FM channels were launched.

Trai said that no new community radio station came into operation in the quarter, while seven new licenses were given out. In the previous quarter that ended on 31 March, there were 67 community radio station licensees, out of which 41 were operational. Meanwhile, a total of 469 requests were received by the government for the same as of 30 June this year.

Internet subscriber base reached 14.05 million at the end of June 2009 as compared to 13.54 million at the end of March 2009 registering a growth of 3.80 per cent. This growth rate is lower as compared to that of the quarter ended March 2009 (5.30 per cent).

Meanwhile, the number of broadband subscribers was 6.62 million at the end of June as compared to 6.22 million at the end of March 2009, registering a growth of 6.43 per cent over the previous quarter. The share of broadband subscribers increased to 47 per cent from previous quarter's 46 per cent of the total subscriber base.

The Average Revenue Per User (Arpu) for dial-up internet subscribers increased by 2.97 per cent on quarterly basis to Rs 243.50 for the quarter ended June last. Interestingly, out of the 2.39 million internet subscribers added during the period June-08 to June-09, 2.24 million are broadband subscribers (94 per cent of the net additions). Trai also mentioned in the report that the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has retained its top position with 54.09 per cent and a subscriber base of 7.60 million internet subscribers at the end of June 2009 against 7.26 million at the end of last quarter.

- IndianTelevision

Here are the new judges..

Kalakka povathu yaaru junior is starting this week in Vijay TV and I think this program will be a super hit show. The show starts tomorrow and is weekly 1 show schedule. The program had many judges earlier in the previous seasons. This season it is going to be actor Pandiarajan and VJ Archana... yeah the same Archana who used to compere in Sun TV for quite sometime. The show starts tomorrow.. watch out for the same..I was expecting Archana to be in the channel soon because she was appearing for some other shows/programs.

Agraharam Round..

It is Agraharam round in Boys Vs Girls season 2. From the promotional videos it looks like the crew had loads of fun in this round and I am sure these types of rounds will make the crew and viewers happy. Whole of the Boys Vs Girls sets are in typical Brahmin dresses including the judges Shyaam and Meena. Most of the performances will also be with the same background. There are some performances that has the girls team dressed like Iyer aathu Mama in panchagajam and boys team dressed like Iyer aathu mami in madisar.

The show was pretty good.. what I liked most is when Priya said about Michael and Shivakarthikeyan... she said - For Shivakarthikeyan Body Weak Mouth Strong and for Michael Body Strong, Mouth Weak. The Boys team had lost their competitive/challenge rounds in here and I guess the Girls team are back with bang and they might get their money again. DD and Deepak did good job and I remembered DD's Brahmin role in the film "Nala Damayanthi"...

Vijay TV stopped Prabhudeva & Nayanthara ??

Prabhu Deva and Nayanthara have become so closer that they cannot afford to live away from each other even for a minute. The choreographer-turned-director seems to have been much broken down in spirits as his wife Ramalath has made his ‘bad image’ so popularized amongst media channels. As well Nayanthara seems to be much frightened to make her way down to Chennai and face the reporters. The duo combo was supposed to take part in grand celebration of Kamal Haasan 50 years organized by Kamal Haasan. But women welfare organizations had made a strong statement that they would protest in front of all theatres where Nayan’s films are screened and ban her from film industry… Likely, taken by this gesture of organizations, both Nayan and Prabhu Deva were stopped from taking part in the show as officials of Vijay TV requested them to do so.

Courtesy - Face of South India

SC asks TRAI to fix DTH tariff by 15 January

The Supreme Court has asked Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to complete its exercise to fix tariff for the direct-to-home (DTH) services by 15 January. In its order on Wednesday, the apex Court set the deadline for the sector regulator. Earlier on 6 July, the Supreme Court had given Trai two months of time. The bench headed by Justice BN Agarwal, while extending the time, clarified that it has not expressed any opinion on whether there is any linkage between non-Cas cable and DTH platform, PTI reported.

Trai had sought sufficient time to fix the issue in a proper manner, following a consultation process involving all stakeholders in both non-Cas cable distribution sector and DTH platform. Trai counsels Mukul Rohtagi and Sanjay Kapur sought permission to complete the tariff regulation exercise in respect of DTH services, alongside the finalisation of the eventual tariff dispensation for the non-Cas cable sector.

-Indiantelevision

Kamal 50 years- Mother of all shows!

Vijay TV’s Ulaganayagan Kamal 50, was one of the best conducted events in history of Kollywood. The top guns in the south film industry arrived on the dot of time at Nehru Indoor Stadium in Chennai on Monday night (September 28). There was glamour, glitz and glory along with passion for cinema. It was the culmination of the channel’s month long efforts where they promoted, Dr. Padmashree Kamal Haasan’s 50 glorious years in cinema. Kamal the name itself symbolizes commitment to good cinema.

Take a look at the superstar guest list who turned up for the function- close buddy and superstar Rajinikanth, Malayalam megastar Mammootty, superstar Mohanlal, Telugu superstar Venkatesh, and Nadigar Sangam chief Sarath Kumar were there on the special dais. They were briefly joined by Kamal and Rajini’s mentor K Balachandar, the maestro Ilayaraja and Oscar winner AR Rahman. Gopinath of Vijay TV was the main anchor throughout the five hour show. The function started with an opening contemporary dance performed by Rukmani, followed by stirring speeches by Sarath Kumar urging the state government to rename Eldams Road as Dr Kamal Hassan road..

Then there was a skit by Madhavan and a small boy on the “unbelievable man, the legendary Kamal sir.” It was followed by introduction to Kamal Hassan by AVM Saravanan who played a role in selecting the young six year old to play the child artist in Kalathur Kannamma, and Saroja Devi who talked about his dedication at a young age. Children performed the famous song Ammave Neeyum Appave Neeyum.., the first song picturised on Kamal as a child artist. K Balachandar then made a speech on how Gemini Ganeshan introduced him to Kamal during the shoot of Poova Thalaia and found that the guy had Sarakku Irukke (stuff) to be a good actor, and later he cast him in Arangetram. After Balachander, Shivakumar waxed eloquent on the actor. Then a medley of Kamal songs was performed by Vijay TV’s ‘Ungal Yaar Prabhu Deva ‘team.

Next Jayaram took over the stage and showed an AV on Kamal during the 70’s and early 80’s. Jayaram said : “I consider him as a part of Malayalam cinema because he has done 41 films in Kerala. Do you know that I got the first prize at college youth festival, as I did a mono act based on his dialogues. Later I went on to do four films with him.” SP Muthuraman, Ramanarayanan and noted director K.Viswanath spoke. It was followed by a classical dance by one of Kamal’s yester year heroine s Shobhana from his classic K.Viswanath film Silangai Oli. Then Vivek took over, and went on and on about his being a Kamal Hassan fan and even penned a poem (too lengthy) he had written on the actor. Later Prabhu and Arjun spoke about their relationship and love for the “Ulaganayagan”. Prabhu made it clear: “You are the true waris (heir) to Nadigar Thilagam Sivaji Ganeshan.” The crowd went berserk hearing it and clapped loudly.

Then Radhika Sharat Kumar took over and said what a great actor Kamal is, “He can pretend that he is in love with a buffalo on screen. Without his heroines he can never be a kathal Mannan!” Radhika paved way for Kamal Hassan’s interaction with all his yester year heroines- Jaya Chitra his first heroine, Revathi, Radhika, Urvasi, Nirosha, Lissy, Sarnya, Tabu, Shobhana, Meena and Gowthami. When the ladies on stage constantly pulled his leg Kamal joined them on stage for a photo opportunity and said: “I’m very comfortable with women, as you can see it, as I grew up in a large household full of ladies”. Gowthami his lady love and constant companion said: “ I have done only four films with Kamal sir, but each one of them is a milestone in my career.”

Kamal’s favourite choreographer Prabhu Deva and his dad Sundaram Master dedicated a “very special” medley of the actors hot numbers over the years, which had the crowd on their feet dancing to the hit numbers. Parthipan, KS Ravi Kumar and Shankar spoke about their association with Kamal. Then there was ‘Kamal unplugged’, a medley of songs from Kamal films sung by his favourites SPB and Hariharan. Later Shruti Hassan sang some of Kamal’s heroine songs from his early films. Ilayaraja also sang a poem he penned on Kamal. Then Prakash Raj took over and presented an AV on Kamal Hassan and also introduced artists from different languages in south cinema- Ramesh Aravind (Kannada), Venkatesh (Telugu), Mammootty and Mohanlal (Malayalam), who spoke on Kamal. Perhaps the best was for the last when Rajinikanth made a soul stirring speech on his friendship with Kamal. Finally Kamal in his thanks giving speech became highly emotional and at the end went down on his knees and bowed down to the audiences. The other popular stars and technicians from tinsel town included young guns like Allu Arjun, Ganesh Venkatram, Simbu, Jeeva, Sibiraj, Abbas, Ajmal, Narain, Karthi, Sakthi, Sameera Reddy, Sandhya, Nisha Kothari, Mumtaz, Manorama, Balu Mahendra, Santhanabharathy, Crazy Mohan, Madan, Yugi Sethu, Mysskin, Lingusamy, Cheran, Gowtham Menon, AR Murgadoss, Dharani and many others.

Thanks to Vijay TV, it was a professionally run heart warming and memorable show that has never been done before in Kollywood. The entire event proceedings would be soon aired on Vijay TV and it is a must watch.

Courtesy - Sify Movies

Golden Jubilee year of Kamal Haasan

Vijay TV hosted a function on September 28th to celebrate the Golden Jubilee Year of Kamal Haasan in the film industry. The entire film fraternity including Rajinikanth; Malayalam actors Mammootty, Mohanlal and Jayaram and Telugu stars Chiranjeevi and Venkatesh were present at the event. Speaking at the function, popular yesteryear heroine B Saroja Devi said that Kamal has the acting skills of Sivaji Ganesan and MG Ramachandran’s demeanor. She added that Kamal is an actor who is blessed with natural beauty but does not mind looking gauche in his films.

Sarath Kumar once again stressed that the Eldams Road be named after Kamal Haasan. Director K Balachander said that he knew Kamal would scale newer heights right from the beginning irrespective of whoever introduced him. The highlight of the event was when both Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan walked towards the stage hand-in-hand, which received a standing ovation from the audience. The cultural event was also a part of the show with Prabhu Deva and Shobana organizing a dance show and SP Balasubramaniam, Hariharan and Shruti Kamal Haasan singing some of the Kamal hits. The Nehru Indoor Stadium was bursting at its seams with the who’s who of the film fraternity attending the same.

Few interesting occurrences spiced up the event, like the superstar’s confession about where he learnt acting. In his address, Rajini mentioned that during his earlier days, when he worked with Kamal in KB’s movies, the latter tipped him on how amazing an actor Kamal was and that how Rajini should learn the art from him. “From then on, I started observing Kamal in the sets and began to infuse his flavors in my acting. I learnt Kamal’s nuances when I worked with him and tried to bring it in my performance,” Rajini confessed. He also revealed that he wasn’t comfortable signing up for Robot since the movie was scripted with Kamal in mind. “However, Shankar convinced me that he has made necessary changes and modifications to suit it to my character. Only after deliberations, I decided to take the project,” he added.