ITV

Tag: Navin Kumar

  • News Express rebrands to focus on investigative journalism

    News Express rebrands to focus on investigative journalism

    MUMBAI: When Vinod Kapri quit as India TV’s managing editor and joined News Express as the network’s editor-in-chief and CEO, he had firmly decided that he would bring about a turnaround in the channel.

     

    Now two months later, News Express is all set to give itself a polished look starting 25 February.

     

    News Express has a brand new logo in red and blue and a dual tag line ‘We report to you/Fikra Aapki’ in order to communicate that the channel will be pro people.

     

    Similarly, the graphics of the channel will also be designed by an agency that has developed the new logo. The agency will also be working on the new channels planned by News Express. With the new look, the channel aims to be a lot more cleaner and a lot less noisier.

     

    Investigative stories will form the core of the channel. Says Kapri, “We already have tough competition in the Hindi space. We have decided to do three things: make the channel clutter free, focus on investigative journalism and not put up any content which will hurt people or go against basic norms of news coverage.”

     

    Kapri also adds that the aim of the channel is not to be the first or the number one but rather to be the one to present the right news. The focus is on getting new viewers to sample the new look of the channel.

     

    The channel is launching with its first show called Operation Prime Minister. Other shows lined up are Namaskar India, Desh Janana Chahta Hai with Nishant Chaturvedi, Rajniti Black and White with Navin Kumar, Express Election xchange with Satish K Singh and Nishant Chaturvedi, The New(s) Rebel – Ek awaz tark ki with Satish K Singh, Aaj ke Mukhya Samachar with Nishant Chaturvedi and Kapri’s own show Raj Shastra. A special weekly show called Udaan is planned that will be anchored by acid attack survivor Laxmi.

     

    The marketing campaign will begin in the first week of March, once the channel has settled a bit. Owing to elections, Kapri is confident that it will resonate well with the viewers.

  • Lalli takes charge as Prasar Bharati CEO

    Lalli takes charge as Prasar Bharati CEO

    NEW DELHI: Baljit Singh Lalli, an Indian Administrative Service officer of the 1971 batch from the Uttar Pradesh cadre, has taken charge as the new Prasar Bharati CEO.

    Earlier, on Wednesday, an official announcement was made on the appointment of Lalli as CEO.

    The post had been vacant since K S Sarma retired on 30 June after serving a term of six years. However, the post was held on a temporary basis first by Doordarshan director general Navin Kumar until his retirement and then by All India Radio DG Brijeshwar Singh.

  • Prasar Bharati CEO selected, anouncement later

    Prasar Bharati CEO selected, anouncement later

    NEW DELHI: A high-level committee meeting under vice-president Bhairon Singh Shekhawat late this evening is understood to have finalised the name of the chief executive of Prasar Bharati.

    As information and broadcasting minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi is out of the country, the name is unlikely to be announced until his return.

    The post of chief executive has been lying vacant since 30 June this year, when K S Sarma retired after serving his term of six years.

    The post was held on a temporary basis first by Doordarshan director general Navin Kumar until his retirement and then by All India Radio DG Brijeshwar Singh.

    Under the Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) Act 1990, the selection of the chief executive has to be made by a high-level committee comprising the chairman of the Rajya Sabha (who is the Vice-President), Press Council of India chairman (Justice G N Ray), and a nominee of the president. It is understood that S K Arora who is secretary in the I&B ministry was the third member on the committee.

    The chief executive normally has a term of six years and functions under the Prasar Bharati Board which is headed by a chairman.

  • Navin Kumar appointed interim CEO of Prasar Bharati

    Navin Kumar appointed interim CEO of Prasar Bharati

    NEW DELHI: Doordarshan director-general Navin Kumar will be the interim CEO of Prasar Bharati till a selection panel zeroes down on a full time candidate for the post being vacated by KS Sarma.

    Sarma served as the CEO of Prasar Bharati, which manages DD and All India Radio, from March 2002 to June 2006. Kumar’s appointment too would be a short one as the government official is slated to revert to his home cadre in August after a stint in New Delhi.

    As Kumar will be functioning as the CEO of Prasar Bharati, senior-most deputy director-general, LD Mandloi, will be the acting DG of Doordarshan.

    Interestingly, before Sarma took over the reins at Prasar Bharati, the then additional secretary in the I&B ministry, Anil Baijal, served as the acting CEO for about 18 months.Chief executive of the publicly funded Prasar Bharati is chosen by a panel headed by the Vice-President of India and comprising the chairman of the Press Council of India and a government nominee.

    Sarma’s over four-year term had its ups and downs, but he is credited with successfully launching DD’s subscription-free DTH service DD Direct+, and steering Prasar Bharati’s annual revenues to over Rs 10 billion for the first time in FY06 ended March 2006.

    It was also during Sarma’s tenure that DD News was relaunched and an in-house marketing team set up to market programmes aired on DD and AIR instead of outsourcing the activity, which, more often than not, ran into legal problems.

    Though Sarma would not like to take much credit for it, but he is said to have successfully lobbied with the ministry to bring about changes in sports broadcasting, which resulted in the downlink law being formulated that makes it mandatory for private broadcasters to share feeds of listed events with the pubcaster.

  • Doordarshan unveils mobile, digital initiatives

    Doordarshan unveils mobile, digital initiatives

    MUMBAI: Doordarshan will launch its Digital Video Broadcasting to Handhelds (DVB-H) service in the second half of 2006. The technology will help the consumer to access video clips on mobile phones.

    “With this technology, we will be able to make available the content of our four national channels on mobiles. Earlier, we had made available DD News in moving vehicles in Delhi through the Digital Video Broadcasting to terrestrials (DVB-T) earlier. Now with the DVB-H technology, we are entering the mobile space,” says Doordarshan director general Navin Kumar.

    In another initiative to explore advanced technology, DD will digitize its archive and make it available to the public as streaming videos. The content will be available to consumers on a per view basis.

    “Our effort is to share this content with people through CDs and streaming videos. In streaming mode, people will be able to watch the programmes in real time basis,” says Kumar, adding that discussions are presently on with various telecom service providers in this direction.

  • DD’s DTH to expand bouquet to 50 channels in June

    DD’s DTH to expand bouquet to 50 channels in June

    MUMBAI: DD Direct Plus, the direct-to-home (DTH) service of Prasar Bharati, will undergo its first phase of expansion in June this year. As per the plans, the number of TV channels on the DTH platform are being ramped up from 33 to 50 while the radio channels will go up from 12 to 20.

    “DD Direct Plus will increase its strength from 33 channels to 50 channels by the end of June this year. The new channels joining the DTH platform will be from Hindi as well as the regional markets,” Doordarshan director general Navin Kumar tells indiantelevision.com. He, however, did not name the new channels which were hopping on to the DTH offering.

    The private broadcasters joining the DD Direct Plus bouquet will be paying Prasar Bharati annual fees of Rs 10 million, according to Kumar. “Prasar Bharati charges the private broadcasters part of DD Direct Plus annual fees of Rs 10 million and this is applicable to even the new channels joining the DTH platform,” Kumar says.

    In the second phase of expansion, DD Direct Plus will add up a further 50 channels to take the total DTH bouquet to 100 by the end of the year.

    What about offering FM radio stations? There is no development yet on DD Direct Plus’ plan to sign FM radio stations, Kumar says. Under the present policy, FM radio stations can operate only within a particular geographical area and cannot have a pan-India presence. This had come as a stumbling block for Prasar Bharati when it planned to offer space to private FM channels in DD Direct Plus.

  • Windies tour: SC bars Doordarshan from coercing Ten Sports on feed share

    Windies tour: SC bars Doordarshan from coercing Ten Sports on feed share

    NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has brought to an abrupt halt pubcaster Doordarshan’s “unfettered acess” to coverage of the India cricket team’s tours abroad.

    In a ruling that will for the present hold only for the forthcoming West Indies tour by the Indian cricket team, the apex court ordered today that Ten Sports has exclusive telecast rights to the series and need not share it with the pubcaster.

    A two-judge Bench comprising Justice Ashok Bhan and Justice LK Panta directed that Prasar Bharati (which manages DD) will not take any coercive step or action for taking the live feed of the matches, a Press Trust of India report said.

    India is scheduled to play five one-day matches and four Tests in the Caribbean in a tour that kicks off with the first ODI on 18 May.

    The court, according to one of the parties involved in the case, said that the clause in the downlink guidelines relating to making available feeds of all events of national importance to DD on a mandatory basis lacks proper legal teeth.

    In the absence of a detailed and written order, which will be issued later by the court, the ramification of this order cannot be fully gauged in terms of the overall downlink guidelines, which is being sought to be implemented by the government from 10 May by when all stipulations have to be fulfilled by a channel to get landing rights in India.

    “Going by what the court has said DD will have to do without the West Indies tour, but the ruling is limited to only Ten Sports and the cricket tour concerned for the present,” DD director-general Navin Kumar told Indiantelevision.com.

    Asked if DD will be restrained from carrying French Open tennis, for which Ten Sports holds exclusive rights for the region, Kumar added, “I suppose Ten Sports will have to move a separate application in the court for that. We cannot comment at the moment on what will be our future course of action.”

    Last week, Dubai-headquartered Ten Sports had moved the court arguing that if interim relief was not granted to it this time round, a judgment of the court delivered before the recent Indo-Pak series would become infructuous.

    Taj Television Ltd, owner of Ten Sports, had in its original petition on the matter sought a stay on the government guidelines making it mandatory for the sports channels to share feed of sporting events of national importance with Prasar Bharati.

    It also contended that the court should be guided by the earlier verdict in the India-Pakistan series wherein DD was just a carrier of the Ten Sports signals on its terrestrial network and had also deposited a sum of Rs 150 million in the court towards possible compensation to Ten Sports.

    Ten had said it has already sold distribution rights of the West Indies tour to Set Discovery Pvt Ltd, which will have the right to license throughout the country.

    The Bench had given an inkling on its thinking on the matter at the last hearing itself in actual fact. During the brief hearing last Friday, the Bench observed that last time it was a series with Pakistan and “matches of Indo-Pak series are different from the others.” It added, “For West Indies, many people may not be interested.”