| MUMBAI:
Balaji Telefilms Ltd. has set aside Rs 1.5 billion as part of its contribution
to the joint venture with the Star group for rolling out regional general entertainment
channels. While
Rs 600 million will be towards Tamil (Vijay TV) and Telugu channels, the remaining
amount will be invested over two and a half years for the other language channels. "We
have set aside Rs 1.5 billion as our investment in the JV over two and a half
years," Balaji Telefilms CEO R Karthik tells Indiantelevision.com.
The
joint venture company, with Balaji as a 49 per cent partner, plans to launch channels
in Kannada, Malayalam and other languages like Marathi and Bengali.
But
the first new channel to come out of the JV is Telugu which is likely to launch
in September. Vijay TV is an existing Tamil channel which Star bought out from
UTV, but has now given Balaji Telefilms a 49 per cent stake.
Balaji
expects to annually produce at least 900 hours of south Indian television content
after a year's time. "We expect topline and bottomline growth from our south
Indian language programming. We had a revenue of Rs 240 million in the last fiscal
from our southern operations with Sun network but we enjoyed much lower margins,"
says Karthik. Hindi
television programming is also likely to go up from 875 to 1100 hours this fiscal,
but a clearer picture will emerge in the third quarter. Balaji
is planning to set up studios in Chennai and Hyderabad. "We are scouting
for land but the real estate prices in these two cities are too high at this stage.
We plan to invest Rs 100-120 million on each of these studios," says Karthik.
For the movie business, Balaji plans to invest Rs 300 million in four
projects this fiscal. "We have set aside Rs 300 million towards film production,"
says Karthik. Balaji has formed a wholly owned subsidiary, Balaji Motion Pictures
Ltd, for undertaking all film related production and distribution businesses. | 
