The entertainment channel has plans to go pay early next year. Modi Entertainment Network, which is the distribution agent for the B4U channels in the country for three years, is supplying decoders to cable operators at Rs 8,000. Operators can go for another scheme: pay Rs 4,000 deposit and a rent of Rs 250 per month. For the free-to-air B4U Music channel, Modi had supplied digital receivers. B4U has acquired satellite movie rights from Venus, Subhas Ghai and other independent producers, apart from having access to Bharat Shah's library. "We have around 800 movie title rights," said Gupta. High cost of movie acquisition and limited title rights have forced B4U to broadbase the channel with a mix of programming and films. The channel will air 15 hours of serials and nine hours of movies. In UK, B4U runs a movie channel and telecasts 15 hours of movies. Ghai is understood to have been paid a whopping Rs 14 crore for the movie rights. B4U will have just two screening rights for the blockbusters Taal and Pardesh.The Venus library has films like Mela and Badshah. Popular movie telecast rights include Jungle, Josh, Ghulam, Satya, Kareeb, Khalnayak, Border, Dharkan and Pukar.

B4U has roped in Neena Gupta and Zeenat Aman among others for its serials. While Gupta will make Manthan (a plea for help), the Zeenat Aman Show will deal with celebrities. Javed Sayyed, the maker of Heena on Sony TV, will produce Rehnuma, a Muslim drama. Ravi Rai will make an entry into daily soap on television with Sitara, a story about the unfulfilled quest of a lone, successful woman. While Sangarsh is about two women, Bahuraniyaan centres around a traditional joint family.

The channel will have a host of film-based programmes. Bollywood Tales will be rags to riches stories in the film industry, while Bizarre will narrate funny happenings in Bollywood. Money Talks will have top 10 Bollywood movies of the week based on collections and reviews. Star Bite will be a show on how celebrities cook their favourite dish, while Stardom will air the selected songs songs and scenes by the star himself. How has B4U build its library? Though it acquired world rights for most of the recent Hindi movies, it did not have the satellite telecast rights for the Indian territory. But Zee TV and Sony TV who also operate in overseas markets, were not keen to acquire rights of many movies just for the local market. B4U seized that opportunity and quickly expanded its library for the proposed channel.