ETN GETS SIVASANKARAN'S BLESSINGS

The newly-floated Entertainment Television Network (ETN) has got a shot in the arm with direct-to-home television wannabe and multimillionaire C. Sivasankaran taking a 40% stake in the company. Sivasankaran is believed to have pumped in about Rs 50 million into the music channel for his equity stake.

ETN, which has a programming budget of Rs 100 million, is striving hard to overtake music channel leaders MTV, Channel V and Music Asia. "In fact, we've already gained a good deal in the past month or so," says ETN director Yogesh Radhakrishnan. The channel is set to create interactive programming between 7:30 pm and 10 pm daily. "Song, dance contests and other such good audience participatory programme formats is what we are looking at to attract the masses to our channel," points out Radhakrishnan. "The other music channels don't have shows such as Antakshri (a serial song contest) and Sa Re Ga ma (a talent hunt). We intend to create programming which will appeal to not just the 15-24 rich age group but everyone."

According to him, rival and former partner ATN will not succeed in its attempts to put a hurdle in ETN's path. ATN promoter Siddhartha Srivastava has reportedly filed a case against the ETN trio of Yogesh Radhakrishnan, Yogesh Shah and Jagjit Singh Kohli seeking a court order that would prevent them from airing their music channel. He has alleged that they have breached a contractual agreement which prevents them from launching a competing service should they part company.

Radhakrishnan, however, denies this. "It's simply hot air," he says. "There is no court case at all. There is no agreement in place now. And if it was there it was subject to Srivasatava fulfilling his part too. He has not stuck to his side of the deal. Hence ETN will go on."

Meanwhile the ETN trio has apparently also got Sivasankaran's backing to buy up the Hinduja-run cable TV network, InCablenet. They have reportedly made an offer to the InCablenet management to buy over its subscribers at a cost of Rs 700-800 million, minus the assets like the InCablenet corporate headquarters. InCablenet has close to 3 million subscribers nationwide with its stronghold being in Mumbai where it controls more than 60% of the market.

The Hindujas have reportedly not taken kindly to this proposal and have been trying to garner support of their cable operator franchisees to rebuff Encore Television's advances. But industry sources believe it is only a matter of time before - money and Sivasankaran's and Lalit Modi's political backing - the trio will succeed in fracturing InCablenet.