"We are studying the potential audience base and advertising revenues aSouth Asia-specific division is likely to generate," said CNN Internationalpresident Chris Cramer.

The CNNI South Asia feed is likely to go on air in the next few monthsinformed Cramer. "From a business standpoint, this underscores the company'sefforts to solidify CNN's position as the leading news provider in thehighly-competitive regional TV marketplace and shows a substantialinvestment to staying in Asia for the long term," he added.

CNNI has been regionalising aggressively to expand its viewership outsidethe US in the past three years. As part of the effort, the channel hasdoubled its Hong Kong-based production staff and expanded its Asianprogramming roster from 14 hours to 30 hours of regionally focussedprogramming per week. CNNI has invested $36 million towards creatingdistinct programming for each of its regional feeds so far.

If the increase in ad revenue and channel distribution is any indication,the channel's regionalisation drive has begun to show results. "CNNI hasachieved a 35 per cent increase in Asia Pacific advertising revenues and 23per cent increase in cable and hotel distributions within the region," saidCramer.

The channel has reported a jump in regional distribution from 20 million tonearly 26 million households in 29 countries and territories across the AsiaPacific.

As part of the regionalisation effort CNNI produces six programmes from HongKong for audiences who want the latest news and information about the AsiaPacific region. These include Asia Business Morning, a 15-minute newsupdate, Asian Edition, a half-hour evening newscast, Asia Tonight, Biz Asia,CNN This Morning and the half-hour current affairs programme -- Inside Asia.