MUMBAI: A group of non resident Indians (NRIs) are getting together to float a multi-lingual entertainment channel
The company, Manvik Vinjnan Communications Ltd (MVCL), will be based out of Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. "The promoters are NRIs based out of Singapore and the Middle East," says the company's managing director Rajesh Narayanan.
The channel, Bhaarath TV, will offer programmes in Malayalam, Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada. "We will be investing Rs 500 million towards the channel," says MVCL executive director Rajan Mannaar.
Mini Purushotham, who was an executive at Sun Network, has been appointed as the CEO of the channel.
"We are planning to launch in September 2006. We have applied for the uplinking licence. We expect to start the test run in April," Narayanan adds.
Explaining the strategy behind launching a multi-lingual channel, Narayanan said the plan was to attract prominent national as well as local advertisers. Elaborating on the content structure being planned, he said Bhaarath TV would telecast news in all the six languages. 
"About 25 per cent of the content would be devoted to Malayalam language while Hindi will dominate the 7 pm - 10 pm evening primetime," says Narayanan.