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"Zee Business (the new channel as it has been christened)
will be launched in a quiet manner on Dish TV this week and slowly
things would be ramped up," Zee Telefilms news director Laxmi
N Goel told indiantelevision.com.
Zee Telefilms and another Chandra company, ASC Enterprise, promote
Dish TV, the country's first DTH service.
According to Goel, the business channel is being launched on the
DTH platform first as government permission for uplinking from India
has not come through yet.
The proposed business news channel would start off with about eight
hours of programming. Over a period of a month, the effort would
be to increase the content and number of telecast hours to 18 or
24, Goel added.
The dry runs or test runs of the channel had been on for some days
now. The business channel would be on the NSS-6 satellite along
with other Dish TV channels.
Though Goel did not elaborate on the business model for Zee Business,
he did say that there is definitely a market for a Hindi business
channel, which would not restrict itself to covering only stock
markets.
Incidentally, CNBC-TV 18 is also planning to come out with a Hindi
business news channel and TV Today Network promoter Aroon Purie
had told indiantelevision.com in an interview some time back that
there was definitely room for a non-stock market business channel
in India.
Zee's Goel pointed out that as and when government permissions
and other necessary clearances come through, the business channel
would be offered on cable networks too. A decision on whether it
would be a pay channel or free to air on cable networks would be
taken at an appropriate time.
The Zee business channel's application for uplinking, after going
through some changes, has been pending with the government for over
six months.
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