Sahara not to sell entertainment business

Ruling out the sale of Sahara TV following the takeover of its airline business by rival Jet Airways, a top Sahara group official on Tuesday said the company's entertainment wing was looking forward to expanding operations, with the launch of a new Hindi movie channel.

"Reports about sale of Sahara TV are completely baseless. Right now, we are focussing on the launch of our new Hindi movie channel, 'Filmy', which will help our network of businesses deliver better," Shantonu Aditya, CEO, Sahara One Entertainment Ltd told PTI on the sidelines of a press conference to announce the launch of the channel.

"We are confident of reaching around 25 million viewers by the end of this month, which should be achievable as we are embarking on a strong marketing campaign from January 26 before the channel is actually launched on February 12," Aditya said.

"We have a distinctive advantage since we are already in motion picture business, having produced 14 movies last year of which four were hits. The channel will start with an India feed only and plans are on for an international feed soon," he said.

The channel plans to telecast three movies a day interspersed with narrative programmes anchored by four actors including Chunkey Pandey.