ITV

Tag: CNN-IBN

  • TV 18 shines at the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards 2006

    MUMBAI:TV 18 has received the maximum number of awards at the ‘Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards 2006-07’ including the ‘Journalist of the Year – Broadcast’ being conferred to Rajdeep Sardesai, CNN-IBN and IBN 7 editor-in-chief.

    The other awards include ‘Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award’ for ‘Uncovering India Invisible – Broadcast’ to Living Positive of CNN-IBN’s Nilanjana Bose, excellence in ‘Environmental Reporting – Broadcast’ to The Last Dance of the Sarus of CNN-IBN’s Bahar Dutt.

    Rohit Khanna from the CNN-IBN’s Special Investigation Team (SIT) won the ‘Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award’ for ‘Political Reporting – Broadcast’ for a special investigation on Netas for Sale.

    Hiral Sachde and Khushboo Narayan of CNBC-TV18’s have won the ‘Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award’ for ‘Business and Economic Journalism’ for the show Uncovered.

    CNN-IBN and IBN 7 editor-in-chief Rajdeep Sardesai said, “I am really humbled on having won this title and am very proud to have been considered worthy of this award by the Ranmath Goenka Memorial Foundation. This would not have been possible without the team at CNN-IBN and I also congratulate Nilanjana, Bahar and Rohit for their achievements.”

  • CNN-IBN joins hands with The Telegraph to present ‘Lal Salaam at 30’

    MUMBAI: CNN-IBN has joined hands with The Telegraph to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Left Front rule in West Bengal through a number of special stories Lal Salaam at 30, an opinion poll and a panel discussion on the various facets and developments that have taken place under the Left Front rule since 1977.

    CNN-IBN and The Telegraph alliance will entail exercising the editorial and marketing synergies between the organisations. The publication will carry regular stories reflecting the mood of the people as revealed through the opinion poll and special debate conducted by CNN-IBN.

    As part of the celebration, the channel will air a one-hour special panel discussion and opinion poll results on the Left front governance on 21 June at 9:30 pm.

    The opinion poll and special debate being conducted as a part of the series are aimed at providing an analysis of the state’s Left Front administration. The panel discussion, held in Kolkata will reveal the findings of the opinion poll conducted by AC Nielsen on various aspects of the Left Front regime in West Bengal that has persisted, for the last three decades.

    The poll attempts to answer questions relating to the state government’s performance.

    Speaking on the tie-up CNN-IBN and IBN 7 director marketing and online projects Dilip Venkatraman said, “CNN-IBN in joining hands with The Telegraph and the Ananda Bazaar Patrika Group of publications has created a powerful alliance to bring viewers and readers a short, but riveting series analysing the Left Front government’s performance since the past 30 years. I am confident this partnership will prove beneficial to all parties and pave the way for other such endeavours in the future.”

    “This partnership has meant the merging of both editorial and marketing resources between the media brands, which has translated into in-depth coverage on the left front rule in the state on the occasion of their 30th anniversary. We are delighted to have worked with CNN-IBN on this initiative,” added The Telegraph president Amitabha Datta.

    “To complete 30 years of rule in a single state is by no means a small feat. Lal Salaam at 30 is our recognition of this milestone while simultaneously analysing the corollary of the same,” said CNN-IBN and IBN 7 editor-in-chief Rajdeep Sardesai.

  • Plagiarism case: Bombay HC raps CNN-IBN

    NEW DELHI: In a landmark final order in the case between Urmi Juvekar Chiang Vs Global Broadcasting Network and others, the Bombay High Court yesterday ruled that CNN-IBN has breached the confidentiality of Chiang and violated her copyright.

    The court also reprimanded CNN-IBN editor Rajdeep Sardesai for stating in the court that he did not know that one of his team, Ramchandran Srinivasan, had been talking to Chiang about her proposed TV reality show.

    The court, in its ruling, stated: “The claim of the Defendants that they have conceived in-house programme “Summer Showdown” around March-April 2007 as a reality show comprising families in metros dealing with problems related to summer, even if accepted, does not take the matter any further.

    “For, the Defendants have eventually come out with the programme which departs from the theme of the title ‘Summer Showdown’ but is ascribable to the theme of the programme of the Plaintiff titled ‘Work in Progress’.”

    In fact, the court underscored a similar order of the Delhi High Court, which had said that if protection is not granted in such cases to the persons whose original work is violated thus, it would be “catastrophic for the television industry”.

    The channel had countered Chiang’s claim that its show (Summer Showdown) was based on Chiang’s original literary piece for a proposed reality show (Work in Progress), by stating that theirs was not a reality show, but the court said that this statement did not fit the facts.

    CNN-IBN had been advertising in its website, stating that Summer Showdown was indeed their new reality show, and this was given in evidence to the court by Chiang, whose plaint the court upheld on all counts.

  • CNN-IBN hit with copyright case; court stays show

    NEW DELHI: The Bombay High court on 7 June granted an stayed in the interim the CNN-IBN reality show Summer Showdown, accused of violating copyright and breaching confidentiality by scriptwriter Urmi Javekar Chiang, who had allegedly sent the channel the original project titled Work in Progress.

    This means that the last three episodes, the conclusive part of which was to air today (9 June), could not be aired, as an appeal to vacate the stay filed by the channel yesterday was refused by the court.

    The court said that it was not possible to grant the prayer of the channel to refuse a stay, “in view of the detailed reasons recorded in the order, which dictation took more than two and half hours”. Before writing the order, the court heard the marathon arguments for three hours.

    The vacation judge held: “Pending the hearing and final disposal of the suit, it is absolutely just, necessary and proper that the plaintiff is entitled to… an injunction of this Hon’ble Court, restraining the defendants… from in any manner whatsoever infringing the copyright of the plaintiff in the original ‘literary work’.”

    While the above statement was on the issue if violation of Chiang’s copyright, the court further took cognisance of the allegation of breaching the confidentiality of information passed on by Chiang to the channel. The case is expected to come up for an appeal on Monday (11 June).

    The court said that the literary work was the “concept note of the television programme, Work in Progress, and stopped the channel from directing or making or copying or reproducing the same, or publishing or broadcasting or otherwise reproducing the work by making and broadcasting the television programme Summer Showdown without the plaintiff’s consent”.

    It said that granting the request of the channel would make the case infructuous, “in as much as the programme… is limited to 10 June”, but the interests of the channel would not be compromised if the stay is ordered, as the channel had stated that the programme is aired for only two to three minutes a day.

    CNN-IBN, in their affidavit, argued that Chiang had no serious case and was merely trying to create confusion, and that she had failed to show that what she sought to protect has been copied by the channel.

    “No attempt has been made by the Plaintiff to draw out any alleged similarities” between her work and what the channel televised, said the affidavit.

    “Making a hero out of a common man by giving him a target of 30 days to solve a problem of their choice, creating drama and tension, involving public by SMS polls, showing the authorities as antagonists is completely different from pitching civic agencies from five cities against each other to solve civic problems without any of the ingredients of the Plaintiff’s concept note,” says the affidavit.

    The channel stated that it would be incorrect to call Chiang’s note one on a reality show, and that she alone held the copyright to a reality show involving people solving civic problems.

    Besides, CNN-IBN has done programming of this nature, it had been argued by them, and that many other channels have shows of this nature.

    The channel argued also that for copyright infringement to be alleged there must be substantial and frame-by-frame imitation of Chiang’s work, but the CNN-IBN show is materially different from what her concept note said.

    Chiang’s petition seeks payment of damages worth Rs 500,000, plus costs of court case, and also reserves the right to ask for higher damages and pay the court fees accordingly.

    Chiang had filed a petition with the court saying that in or about November 2005, she had an idea of a reality television programme which would follow citizens from different parts of the country as they took the initiative and set out to solve a civic problem of their choice in their locality.

    The programme would follow the chosen protagonists through the quagmire of bureaucracy and conflicting interests and destructive attitudes as they tried to solve a civic problem of their choice.

    Chiang says in her petition that she had worked out a written project concept note for this reality show and had it registered with the Film Writer’s Association, Mumbai.

    Subsequently, Chiang sent it to CNN-IBN’s Rasika Tyagi by email, and the latter responded back on 21 March, 2006 – by Email – that she had taken a look at the project and found it interesting, and asked Chiang to come to Delhi to discuss the project further.

    The channel discussed the content in detail but did not agree to the budget she wanted, so Chiang says she got Arun Gaurisaria as the ‘Line Producer’, who re-worked the budget and sent it over to Tyagi.

    Chiang said in her petition that she also discussed the concept with Ramchandran Srinivasan, another producer.

    Srinivasan sent an email dated 24 July, 2006 to CNN-IBN Editor-in-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai. Srinivasan referred to Chiang’s proposal and stated that he could cut down the budget if he produced it.

    Srinivasan, in fact, forwarded the budget as well as the original concept to Sardesai who replied to the email.

    On 3 February, 2007, Gaurisaria met Sardesai on a flight and discussed the project, and again emailed the concept note of the proposed television programme to the latter.

    As there was no reply, Gaurisaria sent a reminder email dated 15 February to Sardesai.

    Chiang says that despite many follow-up emails by Gaurisaria, CNN-IBN had then fallen silent.

    On or about 19 April, Chiang’s petition says, she was shocked to see promotions of a programme titled Summer Showdown on the CNN-IBN Television Channel, “which seeks to showcase five families across five cities, trying to find solutions to civic woes that come with summer.

    The promo videos suggest that the television programme Summer Showdown follows the chosen protagonists through the quagmire of bureaucracy and conflicting interests and destructive attitudes as they try to solve a civic problem of their choice.

    In short, she alleges that it was a straight take-off from her original work, which had already been registered in her name, and said that the only difference was, instead of individuals setting out from four corners of India, as she had first visualised, there were five families, but this was a mere ‘cosmetic change’.

    The channel denied charges of breach of confidentiality because it said Chiang had been repeatedly sending the proposal unsolicited by CNN-IBN.

  • CNN-IBN starts reality news show

    NEW DELHI: CNN-IBN is launching a show Summer Showdown in a reality show format.

    Encouraging citizen journalism, the show will follow a family each from the five metros – Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata – for five-weeks. They will be asked to report on all the civic problems that they feel are threatening to become a crisis this summer – from continuous power cuts, overflowing sewers to the dismal state of our roads.

    In addition, these citizen journalists will be provided opportunities to meet and interact with the local civic authorities to find solutions to these real and unrelenting problems and work towards realising them.

    The two-three minute daily basis stories of their personal experience will be carried on CNN-IBN’s Newswheel. The initiative will culminate in a one-hour special on 26 May that will track the previous week’s progress to see which city’s civic authorities were the most efficient in responding to their citizen’s appeals.

  • CNN-IBN & Indian Express team up for UP election coverage

    MUMBAI: CNN-IBN and The Indian Express and the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) have joined hands to cover state elections in Uttar Pradesh. Special month-long programming titled ‘Battle for U.P’ on CNN-IBN will include live debates amongst various party leaders and prominent authorities; exit poll projections after each phase of polling and post-poll surveys – providing a holistic account of the electoral activities taking place in various parts of the state.

    An editorial and marketing collaboration between the two news houses The Indian Express and CNN-IBN promises to provide the readers and viewers with the most up-to-date, comprehensive and precise news on all aspects of the election – from pre-polling, the actual ballot casting to post-poll results and developments, informs an official release.

    The scope of the partnership entails The Indian Express featuring tune-in advertisements on the ‘Battle for U.P.’ programming along with regular extensive poll coverage on the days after it is aired on CNN-IBN.

    In addition to daily news wheel stories the channel will also air a series of programmes dedicated solely to the elections. Some of them will include –

    *A half hour special debate show from Lucknow on – whether the state’s capital is being left out from the rest of the country when it comes to economic and social growth – featuring some of the city’s most recognisable faces. The show will air on CNN-IBN on 27 April at 8:30 pm

    *’Battle for U.P. exit poll special’ on CNN-IBN- will present the exit poll projections of that phase on 1 May.

    *Similarly, on 8 May – the day of the last phase of polling – a one-hour special at 9:30 pm on CNN-IBN will be aired analysing and predicting the exit poll results.
    *11 May will see live, day long special coverage of the UP ballot counting on CNN-IBN beginning from 7 am until at least 2 pm. Two more shows will follow in the evening.

    Introducing the campaign, CNN-IBN and IBN 7 editor in chief Rajdeep Sardesai said, “The UP elections are without a doubt one of the most important state assembly elections taking place in the country this year and CNN-IBN will be present on location to bring their viewers the most up-to-date news and comprehensive analyses as and when they happen.”

    Speaking on this significant alliance, CNN-IBN and IBN 7 director marketing and online projects Dilip Venkatraman said, “This coming together of the two biggest news brands to report on the U.P. elections is an all-encompassing approach that includes the best of both print and broadcast news. We are delighted to work together with The Indian Express on a property as important as this and hope for similar collaborations with them in the future.”

    “It is a great pleasure to collaborate with CNN-IBN in bringing our readers the latest on the U.P. state elections. I am confident that our partnership will provide the most current and inclusive coverage on the event(s) along with reliable analyses of the post-poll results,” said The Indian Express head corporate business development Gautam Mukherjea.

  • ‘CNN is an American-owned news channel, but we are not America-centric’ : Rena Golden – CNN International senior vice president

    ‘CNN is an American-owned news channel, but we are not America-centric’ : Rena Golden – CNN International senior vice president

    A little girl from a small town in Bihar who migrated from India to the US when she was just six years old, Rena Golden is today at the very top rung of the hierarchy at global news major CNN International. As senior vice president, she visited India this week to announce the latest edition of “Eye on India”, focussed this time on the youth power of the country.

    Credited by her colleagues with amazing skills, journalistic and managerial, driving the world’s largest news broadcasting company CNN from just an all-American channel (“I joined 21 years ago when people used to call CNN Chicken Noodle News!”), to an international one reaching 2 billion viewers across 200 countries, she still retains a disarming level of simplicity.

    It is perhaps natural that an American of Indian origin would also be the head of CNN’s Diversity Committee, ensuring that community parity is maintained not just within the organisation but also in the dissemination of news.

    Golden, who studied in two universities in North Carolina, graduating in English with Honours (“My father wanted me to be a doctor, but I wanted to study English”) and started working with CNN from 1985, spoke to Indiantelevision.com’s Sujit Chakraborty on the present status and future plans of CNN.

    Excerpts:

    You have a large hand in shaping the strategic direction of CNN. What is the most significant area you are looking into at the moment?
    I think it is expansion of news beyond the television sphere. We are on the Internet, mobile phones… I think what CNN is interested in becoming is your news source, on whatever platform it may be… your phone, your Blackberry… We want to become your news information source and travel with you, wherever you are.

    CNN’s news website is a tremendous success which attracts a billion users every year. And CNN International has just launched its news service on mobile phone. We are also looking at video on demand and IPTV… we want to be platform agnostic.

    How is IPTV doing in America… there is content available on that platform here in India as well, but the problem is we do not have downloading technology or bandwidth?
    I think even now in the US market the bandwidth is still not there, but the market is growing in South Korea, in Hong Kong and in some of the Nordic countries in Europe, where we can stream the CNN news channel completely on mobile phones. We are still not there on that platform in the US, but I think the important thing is to have your foot in all the areas. CNN is known for that and one of the areas we are looking at is (improving) technology in news gathering.

    That is my second question, in fact. You also deal with the technology of news gathering?
    Yes, for instance, earlier, when we would go for coverage, say in India or the war in Iraq, we would have to travel with 30 suitcases of equipment. Now, thanks to CNN working with Sony, with Panasonic, and other organisations, we have cameras that fit in a suitcase, which you can take as your carry-on luggage.

    When we went to North Korea, we could move in easily and cover news in a much easier manner, which is often cheaper.

    What are the latest innovations and what are the next technological frontiers in news gathering and dissemination?
    Things are getting smaller and smaller… we are looking at shooting footage on a mobile phone. Only last week, we used a Nokia mobile phone and went “live” on CNN. You don’t have to book satellite space. You can just dial into the CNN offices in Hong Kong or Atlanta, and stream news live, so technology is getting smaller and mobile.

    CNN has more than once made public its ambitions to go regional and local. But at least in the context of the Indian subcontinent it has not happened. And now with the explosion in television news in the country, it looks like it never will. I can see your CNNj in Japan, then Turkish and Korean CNN, so why not in India?
    OK, what we have done in India goes beyond what we have done in some of the other regions. We have partnered with IBN and additionally, we have CNN International which covers India not just for Indians but for the rest of the world. Our partnership with CNN-IBN is less than a year old but it has emerged as the number one news channel in this country. That partnership is as strong as what we have in some other regions, say in Turkey where we have tied up with a media channel that broadcasts CNN in Turkish.

    I think there are different models for different markets and the model that we have for the Indian market… Wow! I mean we couldn’t have imagined this. There could be a partnership with some Hindi channel… I am not ruling that out, but what we need is as strong a partner as we have in CNN-IBN.

    We do not have anything to announce here (in terms of a regional channel) so far. We believe in having local partners and we would not do that in India and open a Hindi channel for instance, without a strong local partner. Local partners understand the country much better… So what you see, this partnership with CNN-IBN, is one of our proudest achievements.

    Chris Cramer had told us last year that BBC has a certain Mark Tully factor advantage in India. For the first time though, now both CNN and BBC can be said to running neck-and-neck. It’s been a long while coming but don’t you think it has come too late in the day because of the way Indian news channels have captured virtually all the mind space?
    Sixty years… not just Mark Tully… I think it is a huge association.

    I think also right from the days when we were ruled by the British there was some association, so what do you feel you are looking at here to change that?
    This is the only market where BBC leads the CNN. I think you just put your finger on that. India has a long historic association with Britain and BBC, especially BBC radio, which was here decades before CNN even came to the market. I respect the BBC, no doubt about that.

    But where CNN excels is in breaking news… that’s our DNA, the DNA of CNN-IBN. We also don’t have a British style of presentation, a British view of the world. We have journalists from 50 different nationalities covering news for us. Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for BBC, but I think CNN has very successfully differentiated itself.

    Unlike a few years ago, when even a major train accident here would not be covered on BBC or CNN, there is a lot of India on these channels now. But I also feel that there are documentaries that need to be made on India. What are the kinds of documentaries you think CNN ought to do on India in the near future? Do you have a kind of road map for that?
    I am glad you brought up that question. CNN has a documentary division, and one recent documentary was on Britain’s Muslim population. We also have a couple of them from Iraq and from Africa, etc. We are also doing documentaries with foreign filmmakers. We have partnered with a filmmaker from Sierra Leon who has done five or six films on the major issues of Africa. That gives us the opportunity to get into some of the under-reported stories of the world. So we are looking at filmmakers to partner with for making documentaries.

    But having said that, the important thing to remember is that we are not a documentary organisation, not a documentary channel. Our first and foremost work is 24-hour news. We believe in context, not only what’s happened but why it has happened.

    Everyone knows now India is changing, especially in the economic and knowledge sectors. What are the specific areas of change that excite you the most and why?
    I think it is the influence that Indians are now having in the diaspora… and not just the diaspora, because many Indians are also coming back home. India’s influence outside India is a story that really excites me.

    In the US, Indians are doing a lot of things. There are Indians heading technology companies, there are a couple of Indian filmmakers in Hollywood, and of course there are those in medicine and engineering. But one area where Indians are not there in the US is politics, which I think is important for us.

    The other thing, which is the topic of this edition of Eye on India, is the Indian youth. There is no other country in the world where 50 per cent of the population in under the age of 25.
    ‘In the early days of the Iraq war, the media was not as critical as it should have been and a lot of American society regrets that‘

    Looking at the global picture, is there a region-wise break-up of how it all reports back to Atlanta? How does it work?
    Well, we have an Asian production hub in Hong Kong and a hub in Europe and the headquarters is in Atlanta, but we as an organisation are very decentralised. In India, we have 15 people in the bureau, but we cover India primarily by people who have been journalists in India. It is not just Atlanta dictating what stories are to be done, it’s journalists here saying that ‘these are the stories on the front pages of the newspapers today. We think these are the stories that need to be told about India’. It is people who are working in this country, living, breathing India that drives our India coverage (and likewise, across the globe). That is what makes CNN so unique.

    And speaking of regions, can you offer how revenues stack up in percentage terms?
    Our revenue increase over last year is 22 per cent. Which is very good, very, very strong growth.
    A lot has changed in the last 5-7 years. A global news perspective is not solely in the hands of the likes of the CNN and BBC anymore. The impact of Al Jazeera has been well documented. Now the French have also launched their own global news channel. How is CNN changing to meet the challenges of a world view that is no more ruled from a western Anglo-Saxon perspective?
    Let me put this clearly. CNN International is American owned, and we are proud of our American ownership, but CNN International is not America-centric. It would be crazy for us to be broadcasting internationally but from an American perspective. From the business point of view, that would be ridiculous.

    But I think competition always makes us stronger, because competition means we have to be always ahead. We welcome competition. We have been there for 25 years and there is vast acceptance, because CNN’s journalism is top notch. And we feel there is enough room for others as well.
    And we have been talking about ethics and so forth, so what are the checks and balances that are in place to make sure that stories are fair and accurate?
    First of all, we have the standard-practice guidebook, which, of course, all news organisations have, which all CNN journalists have to abide by. Obviously, the journalist reporting knows the story best, but that story is vetted by many people. Along the way there are many different people who touch that story and fact-check it before it actually goes on air. We are much more interested in getting a story right than getting it ‘first’. We are the Breaking News leader, but we would not be that if our objectivity failed.

    Yes, but say you hire me from India and I, for that matter no one, can be totally objective… maybe I am slightly with the BJP or the Congress or whatever, so a tinge of bias creeps in. So how do you correct that? At the desk level?
    Yes, there is always the issue of being subjective, but there are things like hard facts that cannot be changed. That is why we lay so much emphasis on attribution. If you watch the news channel you will sometimes find that one person has been quoted but the other one has not been… this happens sometimes even if the journalist wants to be objective. It’s in their DNA, but it happens, so we tell them, ‘Hey, that guy’s quotes are not there, so go get it’.

    There have been occasions when a story has been held back for a week to make sure that all the players have got the chance to comment. I can’t tell you how much CNN lives and dies by its credibility factor.
    We’ll pick up on a touchy issue, with American media in particular – “embedded” journalism. Isn’t the way the whole Iraq story has developed a severe indictment on the way the media reported on it from the very beginning? What’s the point of the truth coming out now, when all that is left is death and destruction?
    Well, I think the media had not been as critical as it should have been in the early days (of the Iraq war). Not only the media, there are many politicians and different segments of American society that regrets not having been more critical (at the outset). I think that a lot has changed.

    Because and after the massive Iraq fiasco?
    Because of the war in Iraq and other reasons, because of the political season in general, but I do think that a lot of that has changed. I do think the media has got a lot proper.

    Veering off from your day job, as it were, you are on the advisory board of the Atlanta Woman magazine. Tell us something about the magazine and your area of interest in this.
    I am no longer on the board, but this is a local magazine from Atlanta focussing on the businesswomen. I think as a person involved with international news, I am always interested in what’s happening outside my world. And as a mother, as a wife and as a citizen of Atlanta, Georgia, I also have my responsibility of giving something back to my community.

    As the head of the CNN committee on diversity, what are the crucial diversity issues you face and how do you resolve them?
    The diversity issue we face overall is to maintain the diversity of coverage, to be sensitive to diverse cultures. With American, Latin American, African, or Indian people, all working together in the newsroom, it can be tremendously exciting but there is a lot of opportunity of misunderstanding. And what we encourage is a very open communication in our newsrooms, where people can talk to each other honestly, without feeling they are being attacked. But it’s really difficult to work with such diversity of cultures. It’s a tough challenge.

    Sure, but the question is, how do you resolve that?
    We resolve that by getting people to get together and discuss issues together. And we also give people opportunity to take their issues up without putting their names. If somebody wants to talk to me about a report that he or she feels has been unfair to a particular group of people, they can send me an unsigned note.

    We also hold functions where I may not be there but my managers are there. Transparency is the most important thing.

    You are in charge of talent scouting too. What do you think of the talent pool in India in your line of work and how do you plan tapping that pool?
    Well, I’ll tell you what kind of talent we are looking at. There is a lot of talent here. For CNN International, the presenter has to be a really strong journalist, people who know how to write, and more importantly, people who can speak extempore without a script. There are times, during Breaking News stories, when people have to work for four hours at a stretch in front of the camera without a script. These are people who have to have a fairly strong recall, they have to know the history, the culture, and feel confident enough to express themselves without the written script.

    There are people who differ with me and say, ‘No, an anchor is very different from a reporter. They have to look good, have a good voice, look polished all the time… and it’s the reporter who has to be out there and do the story. No. I can’t afford to do that in CNN International.

    Our anchors are the ones who are on the field as much as possible. Because to my mind, there is no difference between an anchor and a reporter. In the case of Lebanon issue last year, for example, I had three or four anchors going from Atlanta reporting alongside CNN reporters.

  • CNN-IBN and IBN 7 celebrate Valentine’s Day

    MUMBAI: CNN-IBN and IBN 7 celebrate Valentine’s Day

    Mumbai: CNN-IBN and IBN 7 will present a line up of special programming for Valentine’s Day.

    The season finale of Minus 30 will also be a Valentine’s special. The show will feature host Paras Tomar probing people both famous and ordinary trying to answer that multi million-dollar question – What is love?

    IBN 7 on the other hand has come up with a programme series especially for the occasion called ‘Kambhakt Ishq’, which involves short, realistic and highly dramatic stories surrounding different couples. The series’ grand finale on February 14th at 7 pm will bring together these narratives in a half hour episode to create that ultimate Valentine’s special!

    “Valentine’s is a special occasion for most. Programmes on both CNN-IBN and IBN 7 have been designed to reflect this sentiment and help our viewers celebrate the festival of love”, says CNN IBN and IBN 7 editor in chief Rajdeep Sardesai.

    “I have no doubt that ‘Kambakht Ishq’ will be a runaway success, especially with our young audience,” says, IBN 7 managing editor IBN 7 managing editor Ashutosh.

  • Reliance Capital buys 6 per cent in GBN via open market

    Reliance Capital buys 6 per cent in GBN via open market

    MUMBAI: Anil Ambani group company Reliance Capital has acquired 6.27 per cent stake in Global Broadcast News (GBN) through an open market transaction on the BSE.

    The purchase of 1.68 million shares in a bulk deal was made on 12 February. GBN, which operates English news channel CNN-IBN and Hindi news channel IBN7, was listed on the stock exchanges on 8 February.

    After a debut opening on the BSE at Rs 417.10, the scrip had closed at Rs 510.10 with over 13 million shares changing hands on the first day of trading.

    A day after Reliance Capital’s purchase, the scrip opened at Rs 495 and touched a high of Rs 526.70 before closing at Rs 508.65.

  • Global Broadcast doubles on debut

    MUMBAI: Global Broadcast News, owners and operators of English news channel CNN-IBN and Hindi news channel IBN-7, opened big and closed even bigger – at more than double its issue price of Rs 250.

    The scrip opened on the Bombay Stock Exchange today at Rs 417.10, touched an intraday high of Rs 524, and closed at Rs 510.10 with over 13 million shares changing hands.

    On the National Stock Exchange the share closed at Rs 505.90, with volumes of over 18 million shares, after opening at Rs 425.

    GBN entered the capital market with an initial public offering (IPO) of equity shares aggregating upto Rs 1.05 billion. The issue was oversubscribed 48.74 times.

    GBN is part of the Television 18 Group, which owns and operates leading business channel CNBC TV18 as well as consumer business CNBC Awaaz.

    The company proposes to utilise the net proceeds of the IPO issue to finance acquisition of land, meet construction cost and repayment of loans.

    The book running lead managers to the issue were ICICI Securities and Kotak Mahindra Capital Company. The co-book running lead managers to the issue were JM Morgan Stanley and IL&FS Investsmart.