Atn Off-Air Since Six Days Due To Technical Glitches

Technical problems have kept the music channel Asia Television Network (ATN) off the air for the last six days, according to company officials. ''There is a technical snag at the ground station in Singapore. Some cables got short circuited. This has resulted in the current disruption of transmission.

He added thatza technical team hadbeen sent to Singapore on yesterday morning and transmission will be resumed by Wednesday,'' said R T Malkani, senior vice president ATN.

He had earlier claimed that transmission will be resumed by Monday evening. ATN uplinks from Singapore. It has leased a transponder on the satellite Panamsat--4 which is owned by a consortium of US-based companies. ATN had gone off the air at least twice before. The company had then cited problems with the Russian satellites it was on before.

Not all industry observers are prepared to buy this theory. ''ATN is currently facing cash problems and has not been able to pay for the lease of the transponder. This has resulted in the satellite being delinked,'' they said. ATN has gone off the air at least twice before. This is categorically denied by Malkani. ''The company is not facing any resource crunch. The problems are purely technical in nature. Rivals are capitalising on this situation to spread rumours.'' he said.

Ironically, ATN has gone off the air at a time when it is in the middle of a revamp. It had started out as a 24 hour music channel. Over the last one month it has tried to broad-base its appeal by showing regional programmes and feature films. It is also planning to telecast Hindi film news.

A countdown show too is on the anvil. The channels still telecasts 18 hours of music everyday. Last month it also launched a teleshopping division under the brand name International Teleshopping Network (ITN).

All this had prompted Zee to claim at a press conference in Mumbai last week that ATN is no longer a music channel.

Consequently, it claimed that the music channel from the Zee stable, Music Asia is the number one music channel in India with Channel V and MTV lagging behind.