The difficult economic scenario notwithstanding, the television channel business is set to get a boost in Kerala, with two more channels ready to roll out by Onam, making it a considerably large bouquet of channels for Malayalam TV fans.

The two new channels to be on air by Onam are India Vision, which has Kerala public works minister Dr M.K. Muneer as the chief executive, and Jeevan TV, which has the backing of the Catholic Church in the state.

India Vision is to have round-the-clock programming by August, and technical tests have been conducted in Kerala as well as in Dubai and Abu Dhabi last month.

Trial runs have indicated that the transmission quality matches global standards. Three-hour daily programming by way of trial runs are expected to go on air by the end of this month.

The two new channels will add to the already strong field of Malayalam channels comprising Asianet, Kairali, ACV, Asianet Global and the state-run Door-darshan's Malayalam channel.

On the business side, however, things have not been very bright for the channels, with all of them sharing an advertising pie of approximately Rs1 billion. According to industry sources, this is hardly sufficient to justify the existence of so many channels.

India Vision promoters feel that the current fare on offer has an over-dependence on film-based programmes, and that repeat telecast of films is making the offer stale. Therefore, the channel is planning to allot about 40 per cent of its time to news-based programming.

The channel has roped in a group of top notch professionals, with littérateur M.T. Vasudevan Nair heading the panel that oversees programme production.

India Vision has an initial investment of Rs850 million, and will use the Thaicom transponder which covers West Asia, Africa and the United States.