ITV

Tag: Kavi Darbars

  • ETC Punjabi to enter Australia & New Zealand this fiscal

    ETC Punjabi to enter Australia & New Zealand this fiscal

    MUMBAI: Zee Telefilms is planning to launch its regional channel ETC Punjabi in Australia and New Zealand by the end of this financial year.

    “We are finalising plans for ETC Punjabi to enter Australia and New Zealand. We expect to launch within the next three months,” says Essel Group chief executive officer of corporate strategy and finance Rajiv Garg who is also the managing director of ETC Networks.

    Also to launch in the last quarter of this fiscal is Khalsa World, the third Punjabi language channel from the Zee stable. “Khalsa is set for a February launch,” says Garg. Zee already owns and operates ETC Punjabi and Zee Punjabi channels.

    The dedicated 24-hour religious channel will telecast live Gurbani from the Golden Temple. It will also have regular programmes like Katha, Kirtan, Kavi Darbars and discourses. The programming will include documentaries on Sikh saints.

    Zee’s customised channel for Astro, Malaysia’s multi-channel pay TV operator, will be commercially launched on 20 January. The launch in Malaysia will happen in April-May, says Garg. “We are creating customised channels in some select markets like the Middle East to augment our international revenues. We are tapping the South East Asian market through an arrangement with Astro,” he adds.

    Aimed at Indonesian, Malaysian and Brunei audiences, the channel’s content will be sourced from Zee TV, Zee Cinema, Zee Music and Trendz. It will be localised with Bahasa Indonesia dubbing and Bahasa Melayu subtitling, to reflect the different language, lifestyle and viewing habits of the audiences in the three countries.

  • ETC announces launch of etc Khalsa

    ETC announces launch of etc Khalsa

    MUMBAI: It’s official. ETC Networks has announced that its soon to be launched Punjabi religious channel will be christened etc Khalsa. The announcement was made in Amritsar today on the occasion of the 400th Year of Prakash Utsav of Guru Granth Sahib. Uplinking permission is however still awaited from the government.

    The dedicated 24-hour religious channel, besides telecasting live Gurbani from the Golden Temple, would also focus on the younger generation ‘which needs exposure to religious teachings, as propagated by the 10 Gurus and depicted in the Guru Granth Sahib as well as the tremendous history of the Sikhs over the past five centuries,” ETC Networks CEO JS Kohli says.

    The channel will have special programmes targeted at Sikh youth as well as other regular programmes like Katha, Kirtan and Kavi Darbars, according to the network. The Gurbani, a salient feature of etc Punjabi thus far, will be the anchor of the new channel. While etc Punjabi becomes a mainstream entertainment channel, the programming on the new channel will be a mix, says Kohli.

    While the telecast of the Gurbani had thus far forbidden getting ad revenues, the commercial breaks during allied programming related to the Gurbani on Khalsa would allow the exploitation of ad revenue, he says.

    Says etc Punjabi president Rabindra Narayan, “Like Christian channels do, etc Khalsa would also help in spreading the message of the Gurus to a worldwide audience as they would now be enlightened in great detail about the world’s youngest religion which preaches a scientific way of living in harmony with nature.”

    Also in the pipeline is a mega serial on the history of the Sikhs. The serial, to be initially telecast in Punjabi on Khalsa, is also likely to be dubbed into Hindi for airing on parent Zee TV. Says Khalsa’s programming VP Rajiee M Shinde, “In order to bring alive the greatness of the Sikhs, our endeavor would be to soon create a mega serial on the lines of Ramayan and Mahabharat on ETC Khalsa about Sikh history.”

    etc Punjabi meanwhile, is offering 18 hours of live telecast of celebrations of 400 years of Sri Guru Granth Saheb’s installation from Amritsar. This will involve sacrifice of all the other programming along with advertisements to give the devotees a chance to watch the proceedings at Amritsar uninterrupted, says the channel. This telecast will begin early tomorrow (1 September) at 3:30 am.