ITV

Tag: Focus Bangla

  • Focus News managing editor – regional Shailesh Kumar quits

    Focus News managing editor – regional Shailesh Kumar quits

    MUMBAI: News veteran Shailesh Kumar, who had joined Focus News as its managing editor-regional news channels in December last year, has decided to make an exit from the firm.

     

    Kumar put in his papers on 1 April and will be serving his notice period at Focus News till April- end.  

     

    Confirming the news to Indiantelevision.com, he said, “It was a personal decision to quit the company. I have not yet decided anything about my next move.”

     

    At Focus TV, Kumar was handling the five regional channels – Focus Odisha, Focus Bangla, Focus NE, Focus Haryana and Focus Hi Fi.

     

    Industry sources also hint at the exit of the channel’s group CEO Neeraj Sanan. However, at the time of filing this report, this website could not confirm Sanan’s exit from the company.

     

  • Focus Bangla aims to capture its audience

    Focus Bangla aims to capture its audience

    KOLKATA: The 24×7 Bengali news channel Focus Bangla, aims to tirelessly captivate its audiences, and is toiling hard on its programming and on introducing fresh and exciting content.

     

    The channel, which is bullish about its growth in the regional market, has also recently introduced a new slot for a programme featuring one-to-one interviews with achievers in different fields once a week from 7.30 pm to 9 pm known as ‘Sojja Saapta’ (Being Straight Forward).

     

    Interesting personalities like ex-Housing Minister Gautam Deb, Opposition leaders like Surya Kanta Mishra, State Urban Development Minister Firhad Hakim, have already participated and spoken straight from their hearts when it came to political discussion.

     

    The newly appointed editor Arkaprabha Sarkar said: “Apart from airing news, we came out with this concept of one-to-one interaction so that the interviewees can express their views, which is not possible to telecast during news slots. We are a non-biased news channel.”

     

    At present, Focus Bangla “airs news bulletins for 16.30 hours a day and another 1.30 hours is dedicated for advertorial content,” Sarkar added.

     

    “We believe in presenting the news… We have not adopted any political line. In a nutshell, we are committed to democracy, secularism and pre-market economy,” he further commented.

     

    “Focus Bangla also aims to reach more viewers in the region. It has also changed its logo with a promise to be “focused” in presenting unbiased news and create a better impact,” remarked Sarkar.

     

    How was Focus Bangla actually christened? At the end of February 2014, 24×7 Bengali news channel North-East Bangla (NE Bangla), changed its name to Focus Bangla, simultaneously changing its logo, which suggested that the channel would be “focused” in presenting unbiased news. A different name with a clearly different stance.

     

    Matang Sinh, a former Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs in the PV Narasimha Rao government, used to own Focus TV and NE Bangla. But towards the end of 2012, Naveen Jindal, chairman of Jindal Steel and Power Ltd. (JSPL) bought a stake in the channel through his family and associates.

     

    “The market for Focus Bangla is still nascent. To compete with the bigwigs, it needs to stay focused. It’s difficult to remain unbiased, especially when the other channels have shown their allegiance to certain political parties. But considering the pivotal role that media plays in a democratic set-up, households should stay as unbiased as possible. The role of media is not to take sides, rather to bring out the harsh truth, no matter how bitter it may sound,” said Abhishek Sengupta, a media analyst.

  • Focus News to revamp regional channels under Shailesh Kumar

    Focus News to revamp regional channels under Shailesh Kumar

    MUMBAI: It was in September that Shailesh Kumar quit as editor in chief and CEO of news channels.

    After a small holiday, the man is back with a mission. Kumar has joined Focus News as managing editor-regional news channels. As part of his new role, he will be handling the five regional channels – Focus Odisha, Focus Bangla, Focus NE, Focus Haryana and Focus Hi Fi.

    “My primary focus here will be to revamp the channels in the coming three to four weeks,” says Kumar about his new role and plans for the network.

    The revamp of the five channels will be done simultaneously. “We will concentrate on content right now as we want the channels to be more relatable in their particular regions,” highlights Kumar and adds, “We will plan our FPCs accordingly.”

    Kumar brings with him a wealth of media experience spanning over a career of three decades cutting across print and TV. He has worked in leading news organisations like the Navbharat Times , Aaj Tak, Zee TV and most recently News Nation.

     

  • Focus Group changes channel packaging for more focus

    Focus Group changes channel packaging for more focus

    MUMBAI: Gearing up for a full fledged launch very soon, upcoming Hindi news channel Focus News has undergone a makeover. Dropping its earlier logo and colour combination, the channel has revamped with fresh colours of red and white.

    Ideated by JWT and executed by Clayground, the same logo format will be adopted for its other regional channels namely Focus Haryana, Focus Bangla, Focus Odisha, Focus NE and Focus Hi Fi, in the next two weeks. The on air look has also been changed, which has been done by an in house team.

    The new logo has the map of the world fitted inside the ‘o’. Speaking on the change, Focus Group CEO Neeraj Sanan says, “Red and white are the colours of news channels. We wanted a unique dimension with an interesting shade.”

    While the regional channels have been fully distributed, the national channel is currently available only on Videocon d2h, Tata Sky and from 1 November on DD Freedish. The group is awaiting its last leg of clearance from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting for its satellite transfer request.

    Focus News is currently situated on Measat which makes it cumbersome while dealing with cable operators as it has to give a dish and IRD box for every operator. It is looking at shifting to Intelsat.

    Once the new satellite is confirmed, it will be available on cable platforms as well. Post getting its distribution fixed, the channel will embark on a marketing plan in the Hindi speaking markets. Sanan is aware that the channel so far has kept itself low on distribution with only a limited presence on the DTH platforms. Therefore the logo change will be noticed by most.

     “We are creating a brand for the future,” he concludes.

     

  • Focus TV network is on the right track: CEO Neeraj Sanan

    Focus TV network is on the right track: CEO Neeraj Sanan

    KOLKATA: Barely five months after NE Bangla rebranded itself to Focus Bangla due to a change of ownership, gossip has been doing the rounds that the Bengali News channel’s survival is a big question mark. For starters, its chief editor Biswa Majumdar has left for rival ETV Bangla as senior editor.  Then the  channel has yet to rake in the money and sources say that it was preparing to  hand out pink slips and employee compensations.

     

    However, when Focus Network group CEO Neeraj Sanan was contacted, he firmly asserted that any talk of the channel being shut down was baseless.  In fact, he says there is no question of pulling down the shutters. “We are pretty bullish and are correcting everything that was wrong. We have just invested in a seven storied building in Odisha which will function as our office,” he says. “We have taken 30,000 square feet of space in Noida and our Agartala operations have restarted,” he says. “We are investing further: increments are slated to be  handed out to our Bengal channel staff over the next couple of days and I will be personally going to Kolkata for the same.”

     

    But even then media expert Swaraj Mukherjee told indiantelevision.com that  “the Jindals are still negotiating with an NRI buyer to sell Focus Bangla but so far that’s in limbo.”

     

    Sanan rubbishes all this as corridor talk. He says a new chief editor will be hired soon to replace Majumdar at Focus Bangla.

     

    Although 2013 wasn’t a very productive year for Bengali channels, Ethical Media Trust (EMT) that owns the Focus News network is looking at actively investing in its six channels. The Trust has Matang Singh, who was the former owner of the network that was erstwhile called as Positiv TV, as the majority shareholder with several others pumping in money as well.

     

    The Harvard educated Sanan admits that cash flows and revenue inflows could be better, but he points out that “they are at significantly better as compared to the zero levels they were earlier. Eventually, things will really look up.”

     

    In an earlier interview with indiantelevision.com, Sanan had said that the network’s aim is to have an honest channel without any worry about the money required to run it. 

     

    (Updated on 4 August 2014 at 16:00 hours)

     
  • Biswa Majumdar to join ETV News Bangla as senior editor

    Biswa Majumdar to join ETV News Bangla as senior editor

    KOLKATA: Network 18 controlled ETV News Bangla that launched around four months ago, will be appointing veteran journalist Biswa Majumdar as senior editor from August, highly placed media sources from the company have confirmed.

     

    Currently Biswa Majumdar is the editor-in-chief of Focus Bangla, another 24-hours Bengali news channel from Kolkata.

     

    Dhrubajyoti Pramanik was appointed as editor of ETV News Bangla earlier this year. ETV News Bangla was launched in the presence of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on March 15 this year.

     

    More than 40 journalists had joined in the editorial team from the Zee group, ABP Anando, News Time, 24 Ghanta among others.

     

    ETV News Bangla is trying all the means to capture the news market in Bengal. Experts say that the investment by Network 18 in this channel is big and it expects a bigger return too.

  • ABP Ananda continues to be the chart topper

    ABP Ananda continues to be the chart topper

    KOLKATA: The week 26 of TAM TV Ratings has seen no major change from the previous week in the Bengali News space. ABP Ananda has gained highest in terms of gross viewership in thousands (GVT) as compared to other TAM subscribed channels in the state.

     

    The channel from the house of Kolkata headquartered ABP Group garnered 1,783 GVTs, up from the 1,477 GVTs it recorded in the previous week. 24 Ghanta bagged 1,674 GVTs this week and stood second in the ratings chart. The channel, last week had received 1,394 GVTs. 

     

    Focus Bangla scored higher than Kolkata TV by reporting 734 GVTs, again a hike from the 557 GVTs it received last week. Kolkata TV on the other hand garnered 185 GVTs as compared to 143 GVTs it managed in week 25.

     

    All the TAM findings take into account CS4+ for all the days in the state.

  • ABP Ananda gains big in week 25

    ABP Ananda gains big in week 25

    KOLKATA: When it comes to Bengali News channels and their performance in the week 25 of TAM TV ratings, ABP Ananda gained highest in terms of gross viewership in thousands (GVTs) as compared to other channels in the state.

     

    The channel from the house of Kolkata headquartered ABP Group garnered 1,477 GVTs as compared to the 1,394 GVTs achieved by 24 Ghanta.

     

    While Focus Bangla revamped, recently, from NE Bangla was seen to make a mark on people’s mind here. It overtook Kolkata TV by reporting a GVTs of 557.
     

    On the other hand, Kolkata TV, which was doing well till a few weeks ago, managed to garner only 143 GVTs.

     

    All the TAM findings take into account CS4+ for all the days in the state.

  • ABP Ananda biggest gainer in Bengali news space: TAM TV Ratings

    ABP Ananda biggest gainer in Bengali news space: TAM TV Ratings

    KOLKATA: The Bengali news space is led by ABP Ananda. The News channel, according to the week 21 and 22 of TAM TV Ratings, has garnered 3,077 GVTs as compared to the 2,375 GVTs recorded by 24 Ghanta which stood second in the ratings chart in week 22. In week 21, ABP Ananda had received 2,934 GVTs as compared to the 2,234 GVTs achieved by 24 Ghanta.

     

    According to a senior media analyst Pulakesh Ghosh, the two channels gain the most, considering they belong to networks having national presence. “The two channels, because of the national backup of news can break more news and have more content to air.  They can even telecast national events live,” he said.

     

    Said another senior media analyst, “The two channels know the pulse of the audience. They know exactly what the audience wants to know and hear about. They have a long experience in reporting in Bengal.”

     

    Focus Bangla piped Kolkata TV by reporting 842 GVTs in week 21 and 30.48 GVTs in week 22. Kolkata TV, on the other hand garnered 208 GVTs in week 21 and 140 GVTs in week 22.

  • Focus Bangla in talks with Tata Sky, Dish TV to increase penetration

    Focus Bangla in talks with Tata Sky, Dish TV to increase penetration

    KOLKATA: The erstwhile Northeast Bangla (NE Bangla), recently rechristened Focus Bangla, is in talks with direct-to-home (DTH) players like Tata Sky and Dish TV to increase penetration. At present, only cable TV subscribers and Airtel Digital TV customers can view the channel.

     

    The 24×7 Bengali news channel also plans to put up 200 hoardings across the state of West Bengal from mid-April to send out the message that the channel is neutral and believes in airing unbiased news. It has even changed its logo to suggest that it will be more ‘focussed’ in presenting news from all angles.

     

    “We are in talks with Tata Sky and Dish TV though nothing has been finalised. We aim to reach 95 per cent TV homes in the state sooner,” Focus Bangla editor-in-chief Biswa Majumdar told indiantelevision.com.

     

    He also said that last week, the viewership of the new channel increased by around 22 per cent as compared to the week before. “Focus TV is in focus now. Focus Bangla is a news broadcasting and entertainment network,” he said and added that the channel would focus on political news with the impending elections and would interview most of the big names in the polls.

     

    Focus Bangla has more than 150 employees on board and is further recruiting people to cover all aspects of news, current affairs and especially, the Lok Sabha elections, to make a mark all over again on the Bengali audience.

     

    “For elections, we have 14 special programmes. Celebrities will go to places and interact with people,” Majumdar said.

     

    Apart from the ‘Khabar Aajke’ section, the channel has a separate Bollywood entertainment section.

     

    According to sources, Matang Sinh, a former minister of state for parliamentary affairs in the PV Narsimharao government owned Focus TV and NE Bangla. Last year however, Naveen Jindal, chairman of Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) bought a stake in the channel through his family and associates. “Jindal had taken over Focus TV in Delhi last year,” said one of the sources.