Mumbai: Nickelodeon has shifted from PAS-4 to AsiaSat-3 to share the same platform as Zee's bouquet of direct-to-operator service channels. This is part of Zee TV's move to beef up the distribution of the Viacom-promoted kids' channel in the country. "We could not give Nickelodeon a major thrust. By bringing it under the same satellite, it will make our operations easier," said a senior Zee TV official.Nickelodeon is the only third-party channel distributed by Zee. Zee will bundle Nickelodeon with its other DTO channels to increase the penetration of the third-party channel. A packaged pricing for the cable operators is being worked out, a Zee TV source said. As a stand-alone pay channel, Nickelodeon costs Rs 2.50 per subscriber while Zee's seven channels (Zee Movies, Zee English, Zee Cinema and the four Alpha regional language channels) are priced at Rs 11.50. Zee will be able to supply to cable operators the low-cost Philips decoders which are used for their group of digitally encrypted channels. While the boxes used for Nickelodeon were priced at around Rs 40,000, Zee's decoders were cheaper at just under Rs 13,000.
Operators will also have access to Zee's alternate scheme: they can pay a deposit amount of Rs 4,000 and a monthly rent of Rs 100. "They can use the same compression system and uplink to AsiaSat-3. This will be less expensive and the same boxes could be used. An eight-channel compression costs $1 million," media analysts said. Nickelodeon will come under Zee TV's subscriber management system (SMS). This will provide Zee a handle to control the subscription payment of cable operators besides enabling it to activate or deactivate the channel. Earlier, Nickelodeon had its own SMS.
"We were plagued with logistic problems. Nickelodeon was on a different satellite and we supplied different boxes. We are correcting that. Along with a packaged pricing, we hope to push the channel forward," a Zee TV source said. Nickelodeon, in fact, was treated as a step child.
The channel was available in the SitiCable network and some smaller cable systems across the country. Though Zee said the shortage of boxes was a limitation, cable operators felt Zee wanted to use Nickelodeon to push forward its own SitiCable network rather than promote the channel. Zee TV will also introduce a Nickelodeon block on the channel in September. This will replace the two Walt Disney shows which went to rival network Sony TV.Media analysts said it would be hard for Zee to establish the popularity of the time slots earlier occupied by Disney.
Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.