BRIEFS

CHANNEL V GETS GENERAL MANAGER, AT LAST

Channel V India, which has been headless for a few months, has finally hired a general manager. Suresh Balakrishnan, an advertising industry professional, will be stepping into the shoes of Jules Fuller who left the music channel a few months ago. Channel V is also expected make an announcement about its new look Indian service in early August.

B4U LEAPS INTO THE US

Bollywood film channel B4U has signed on Kelly Broadcasting Systems to distribute its service in the United States. The channel - promoted by Hindi film distributor Kishore Lulla and steel baron L. Mittal - is to be launched simultaneously in the UK and the US by 26 August. It has tied up with Sony Entertainment Television for a joint promotion package for the UK market.

RAILWAYS TIES UP OPTIC FIBRE PLANS

The Indian Railway ministry has signed agreements with the state-owned Ircon International and Rail India Technical and Economic Services (Rites) under which the two will lay fibre optic cable along the tracks owned by the Indian Railways. Ircon is to lay 1,400 km of cable along the Delhi-Jaipur-Ahmedabad-Mumbai corridor. Rites will lay 1,900 km of cable along the Mumbai-Pune-Chennai section. The two companies will provide free telecom services to the Railways on the two routes with the excess bandwidth being farmed out to private telecom service providers. The ministry has agreed to allow the companies to form 50:50 joint ventures with interested private firms for this purpose.

HATHWAY CABLE DENIES SALE REPORTS MSO

Hathway Cable has denied news reports that it is in talks or has concluded a deal to sell its 500,000 subscriber strong cable network to the Hinduja-run InCable. An annoyed Hathway Cable managing director J. Jayaraman told a local daily that his company is going to expand and will be in business for the next 50 years.

DEPARTMENT OF TELECOM TO BUILD INTERNET BACKBONE

The department of telecommunications is to set up a nationwide Internet backbone costing Rs 4,000 million. It will connect 40 cities in the first phase at an investment of Rs 2,000 million and is likely to place orders for the equipment in the next couple of months.

MEDIA STOCK LISTING NORMS NEED EASING, SAYS REGULATOR

Media companies may be allowed to make an initial public offering after divesting only 10% of their equity to the public as against the 25% norm now. The Securities Exchange Board of India's primary market advisory committee has recommended this adding that the public offering should be for a minimum of 2 million shares totting up to an amount in excess of Rs 300 million.