MUMBAI: That the closure of India operations came as a surprise to much of its staff is apparent from the Christmas special channel 'Holly' that was put together in India earlier this month.

Holly, that runs back to back Christmas programming every year from 10 to 31 December, is traditionally produced in the US and distributed to all the countries Worldspace operates in. After the bankruptcy hassles hit the organisation late last year, Holly could not go on air in December2008. Following several subscriber requests, however, the India team put together Holly this year, and the channel - number 700 on the Worldspace dial, has been on air for over two weeks now.

While the beleagured pay radio satellite operator is likely to issue a public statement in a day or two, Holly will essentially help it kiss goodbye to its nearly 4,50,000 subscribers in the country, most of whom are part of the Airtel DTH DTH service.

Liberty Media's decision not to include India in its Worldspace purchase while  acquiring Worldspace's Chapter 11 assets, has obviously hit the India operations hard. Several of the 300 strong staff that mans the 20 stations of Worldspace, are keen to provide quality programming to its paying subscribers till the last day, even as rumours of late salary payments and no severance payments continue to make the industry rounds.

The marketing staff has not been selling subscriptions in December, it is learnt. With Worldspace backing out of the country, the policy on satellite broadcasting, which was in the works, may not see the light of day. Worldspace, which began operations in India in 2000, was operating without any policy framework in place, and the new policy was expected to cap its foreign direct investment at 74 per cent. The draft cabinet note had indicated that WorldSpace would be given three years to comply with the guidelines.

The Bangalore headquartered WorldSpace India's revenue in the last fiscal was around $6 million. An estimated 300 employees will take a job hit due to the closure of India operations, sources say.

At the time of filing this report, the company had disabled the Worldspace.in website. And on social networking site Facebook, a group of around 200 Worldspace fans has sprung up over the weekend, advocating that the service not be discontinued.