Star is also planning to launch a 24-hour Hindi movie channel and channels on health and education and put FOX News, FOX Kids and UK Granada on its network. Sources say that The News Television group, the Rupert Murdoch company which owns the Star channels, will be spending Rs 80 crore on advertisements, of which Rs 50 crore would be spent on building the Star Plus brand.

UTV, in which Rupert Murdoch's News Corp holds 12 per cent stake, is also in talks with News Television for distributing Vijay TV, its Tamil channel, on the Star network. Senior Star officials said that the two companies had almost concluded the final stage of the talks. Vijay TV has the second largest viewership among Tamil channels. Therefore, when the deal is struck, Vijay TV will have a wider audience and Star will have penetrated a new market where its arch rival, Subhas Zee Television, is already settling down through an alliance with Asianet. This is probably the first of a series of steps that Star will have to take to secure a base in south India. It is likely that UTV will also produce and provide content and programmes to News Corp's webcasting and Internet sites globally, while Star will offer TV content to UTV's broadband portal sharkstream.com.