(12 March 2008 8:30 pm)

NEW DELHI: Hindi general entertainment channel NDTV Imagine is planning to launch overseas by the first quarter of next fiscal, ahead of the lifestyle channel NDTV Good Times.

"We are in talks with the distribution platforms to launch NDTV Imagine in the key international markets like the Middle East, UK, US, Canada and South Africa. The channel should be launched overseas in the first quarter of the 2008-09 financial year," says NDTV head of network distribution and affiliate sales Rahul Sood.

NDTV Good Times will also be taken overseas. "We will subsequently be launching NDTV Good Times abroad," says Sood.

NDTV will also be bringing the two NBC Universal (NBCU) channels - Sci-Fi and Universal channel - to India. "We expect these two channels to launch in the first quarter of next fiscal," says Sood.

Meanwhile, NDTV Imagine has sorted out the crucial distribution issue to back up its content with Ramayan as the driver.

"We are already occupying the third spot in the GEC space, because of our content and distribution success. We had hit almost 80 per cent of the base that Star Plus had right from the start, and have grown it since then. When you launch a Hindi GEC or any other channel in an already cluttered market, there is no way you can succeed without getting your distribution right, and our team managed to do just that. 50-60 per cent of the channnel's success could be attributed to solid distribution," says Sood.

Unlike the other NDTV news channels, NDTV Imagine does not form part of the Set India-Discovery bouquet.

"It was a mammoth task, with 4,000-plus decoders to be seeded across the length and breadth of the country, to make an impact in a marketplace where existing incumbents have their shares," Sood recalls.

Elaborating further, Sood adds: "Four months prior to the launch, all the key markets were identified and the whole launch strategy put in place. The idea was to make sure that we get very high visibility in the early days of launch, so that people get a chance to get a feel for the channel."

Sood, however, was not willing to disclose the carriage amount that NDTV Imagine had to pay to the cable operators.

"So far as carriage fees are concerned, we had a pre-worked limit and we have been pretty well within those limits. The spends were decided by us five months ago and we stuck to the decisions," he says.