How did you determine the ration of Indian programming needed to counterbalance the foreign shows on STAR Plus?
We had an agreement with Subhash Chandra. Back then STAR was a partner in Zee TV. According to the deal, we at STAR Plus couldn t initiate a predominantly Hindi channel. We couldn t have more than 50 per cent of the total programming on STAR Plus in Hindi. That was one limitation we had to work around. Secondly, the English language shows on STAR Plus were popular revenue-earners. To convert it into a complete Hindi channel would have been tantamount to starting from scratch. And a brand new channel could never generate the revenues that STAR Plus was already generating. My objective was to ensure that there was no drop in revenues. So how did you resolve the linguistic dilemma? We divided primetime into two. Up till 9.00 pm, we decided to beam Hindi programmes. After 9 pm, we decided to continue with the English language programmes like before. How did you convince some of the Doordarshan executives to work with you at STAR Plus? Television is a relatively young business in India. Pri
