ITV

Tag: news channels

  • News channels see digital platforms driving subscription income

    NEW DELHI: News Channels have seen exponential growth over the last few years and can still “find the pot of gold,” but from a long term perspective, will have to focus on higher subscription revenues, speakers at The Indian News Television Summit 2007 said here today.

    Audience share has increased from less than one per cent in 2000 to seven – eight per cent as the genre has exploded with over 40 channels beaming news content. “The genre has taken away viewers from the general entertainment channels and brought in new advertisers. News channels have the people to take this pot of gold forward,” Tam India CEO LV Krishnan said.
    The pace of growth is set to accelerate as over 40 applications are waiting for clearance from the information and broadcasting ministry. NDTV, in fact, is expecting a 20 per cent year-on-year growth.

    “New sources of revenue are still to be tapped like content syndication, overseas expansion and internet presence. Besides, there is scope for local news channels with sectors like retail seeing rapid growth,” said NDTV Media CEO Raj Nayak.

    Agreed Starcom Mediavest Group CEO South Asia Ravi Kiran, “We will see dramatic changes in the way news is going to be consumed over the next three -five years. Media organizations will need to gather, aggregate and distribute news.”

    The session on “Searching for revenues: Advertising and Distribution, Finding the pot of gold” was moderated by Indiantelevision.com editorial director Thomas Abraham.

    The digital era will throw open more revenue opportunities for news channels. “There will be subscription opportunities. News and sports, for instance, will drive Mobile TV. In the digital era, however, brands will be important,” said SET Discovery president Anuj Gandhi.

    Al Jazeera Network director – global distribution Phil Lawrie said that it would be interesting to see how business models are going to evolve in India in a digital environment.

    However, Hinduja TMT president – corporate services Ashok Mansukhani wasn’t too bullish on the potential to accommodate so many news channels. “The Cas (conditional access system) data shows that consumers are not willing to pay for news channels. And on analogue cable TV, there is a distribution cost. It remains to be seen how this battle for the marketplace is going to shape up,” he said.

  • Triveni Group to launch two news channels by year-end

    MUMBAI: Triveni Media Limited, part of the Rs 30 billion Triveni Group, is all set to launch two news channels in October-November. The company is also planning to come up simultaneously with a lifestyle channel.

    Triveni will make its appearance in the broadcasting space with a national Hindi news channel. It will also have a channel aimed at the UP-Uttranchal region.

    “We are coming up with a bouquet of four channels in October-November. This includes three launches and a religious channel which we acquired. We have obtained all the government clearances,” says Triveni Infrastructure Development Company managing director Madhur Mittal.

    The company is going to re-launch Sadhna, a religious channel.

    With an investment of Rs 2 billion, the company plans to set up 18 channels in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Maharasthra, Punjab and West Bengal within two years.

    “The debt component of the investment of Rs 2 billion will be 30 per cent. We are not looking at diluting equity now,” says Mittal.

    The channels will be uplinked from Noida, near Delhi. “The inflow of data from the different news bureaus will be collected at a single centre and disseminated into the various regional languages. By using this approach, we will keep our costs low,” says Mittal.

    Triveni Media has roped in Aaj Tak technical director Rahul Kulshetra to head the operations. Ram Kripal, also from Aaj Tak, is appointed as the group editor.

  • B.A.G Films to launch two news channels

    MUMBAI: B.A.G Films & Media Ltd plans to invest Rs 2.70 billion for the four channels it proposes to launch as part of its strategy to diversify into broadcasting business from just being a pure content company.

    B.A.G Films will launch two news channels, says managing director Anurradha Prasad. For the Hindi news channel, it has roped in Aaj Tak director news Supriya Prasad.
    “We plan to invest Rs 2.70 billion for the four channels. We expect to launch the Hindi news channel by November. Supriya Prasad is joining us as director – Hindi news,” says Anurradha Prasad.

    The lifestyle channel could be launched during the same time while “Bliss” will be all about mind, body and soul which will roll out later.

    The two segments are being housed under two associate companies, B.A.G Newsline Network (P) Ltd and B.A.G Glamour (P) Ltd. While the news channels will be under B.A.G Newsline Network, the non news venture will be in B.A.G Glamour.

    B.A.G Films has already applied for uplinking facility with the information and broadcasting ministry to launch channels in news and non news category.

    The company will have its own distribution team. “We are in the process of hiring the distribution head,” says Anurradha Prasad.

  • Frames discusses ‘changing face’ of news channels

    MUMBAI:The Ficci Frames panel discussion on ‘The Changing Face of News in India‘ elicited both optimism and calculated caution from the panelists who included BBC World Wide (Hindi Service) Sanjeev Srivastava, TV Today executive director and CEO G Krishnan, Times Now CEO Sunil Lulla and Alessandro Ferino from DoC Italy. The session was moderated by Pankaj Pachauri who started the session with some very encouraging numbers for the news media.Pachauri started the session by bringing to the audience‘ notice the Times of India cartoon for the day by RK Laxman which features the common man flipping through the channels , watching static images and noting that this is by far more entertaining than the fare actually dished out on television. This attitude could be one of the biggest concerns for news broadcasters in India he noted.

    Although the numbers for news media are encouraging, the content and quality of news content came under sharp focus by the panelists. According to Pachouri all news room discussion revolves around the 4 Cs – Cricket, crime, cinema and crisis. The industry is now facing a question of how to better the quality of their product and move beyond the obvious issues that hog the headlines.
    G Krishanan, the first speaker at the discussion candidly shared that it wasn‘t easy to set up or build the TV Today network in the late 1990‘s when the banks were unwilling to help financially and there were critics galore who insisted that ‘we don‘t need a third news channel, we already have two‘. There was a general consensus then that advertisers won‘t pay a premium and news was a loss making proposition.
    Illustrating how he had been introduced to the new face of streaming mobile video at the Frames seminar Krishnan noted, “It is not the changing face of news but the changing face of India which has brought things into sharp focus. News of course is a micro part of the whole discussion. It is the changing technology and changing nature of demographics that has really helped chart the success story of media and news media in the country.”

    Speaking about the challenges faced by news channels Krishnan said, “Most television news channels are clones of each other. We don‘t need more crime news with scary anchors.” He emphasized the need to build a super brand through ‘differentiation‘ with factors like “art of story telling, look and feel of news and technological advancement playing a big role.”

    He concluded by saying, “there was a need to create multiple touch points for news- radio, mobile, OOH, in-flight entertainment and video streaming on mobile and internet. The idea is to create a brand instead of just a commodity.”

    BBC World Service‘ Srivastava chose to speak on the phenomenon of “infotainment” and question if there is a methodical research to check what viewers want. “There is an increasing feeling that there is more entertainment and less information while the idea of infotainment was to present information in an entertaining manner.”

    As a British public broadcaster who has also had an India presence for long and has actually seen “the changing face of news in India from an half hour telecast to the mushrooming of 24 hour news channels to the present scenario where there is a need to create differentiated, quality news programming,” Srivastav still believes that despite all the news coverage on television the common man is not getting his dues.

    “The man on the periphery loses out in this news game. He‘s not part of the middle class or the consumer class and therefore he has no stand. News ends up disappointing him.” Despite what he calls ‘his old fashioned misgivings‘, Srivastava insisted that news channels would have to wake up to their social responsibilities soon. The television networks have to be responsible to both the market and to the Indian consumer, he said.

    Alessandro presented the Italian news media view where he explained that the country had the bigger corporate giants like telecom and other industries launching news channels. The state of Vatican also had its own news channel. But the country was increasingly facing a situation of “one source news” which was perhaps balanced only by the excellent work done by independent documentary film makers.

    Times Now‘ Lulla had a very specific point to make stating that the business of television news was “highly undervalued”. “There is a big money involved in running a 24 hour news channel. The constant on air product, technology and infrastructure involve big costs.”

    Replying to the constant refrain of audiences and panelists on news leaning towards entertainment Lulla pointed out, “Films, corporates and brands – they turn to news channels to promote themselves because they still view us as a credible source of information.”

    The panelists were confident that the various news channels coming up in India would find ‘its place in the sun‘ and there was no need to hit the panic button on a cluttered market.However, all the panelists also believed that the reason the topic was chosen was to primarily point out that the “change” was still a continuous process and news channels were still evolving.

  • News channels look at scoring goals

    Soccer mania is in the air! With the Fifa World Cup scheduled to kick off 9 June in Germany, news channels in India, both domestic and international, have lined up extensive plans to capture the soccer fever.

    At the moment, most news channels are running a countdown show and profiling the teams and players in various news segment of the day.

    The scenario was quite different four years back. Then the news space was predominantly ruled by the bi-lingual Star News and the Hindi-language Zee News, besides the two international news channels, BBC World and CNN International.

    But today, the same space has more players and is far more competitive. No surprise, therefore, that all the news channels are gung ho about the football fever.
     
    THE ECONOMICS OF COVERAGE

    Industry observers say that an event of such magnitude can cost a news channel between Rs 5 million to Rs 10 million. If the annual operating expenses of news channels are taken into account, then the expenditure on Fifa World Cup might not look big, though it’s an important part of a news channel’s life.

    For example, NDTV Ltd’s operating expenses round up to approximately RS 1.78 billion annually, while TV18’s touches RS 700 million. TV Today with its three channels — the fourth one started just a few days back — incurred an annual operating cost of about RS 1.07 billion. The operating cost primarily includes expenditure on marketing, personnel, administration and uplinking.
     

    Since all news channels have respective long term tie-ups with global wire agencies like Reuters and APTN, part coverage of events like the World Cup come at a slightly incremental cost.

    “Generally, news channels have a long term agreement with a global news agency and for events like Fifa no extra fee is charged. News channels also inks deal with the sports channel that holds the telecast rights to access various other footage,” Zee News director Laxmi Goel says.

    According to Goel, news channels are also likely to tie-up with ESPN Star Sports as it holds the rights to Fifa World Cup for this region. “At our end, the negotiations are on with ESS and we are also talking to other agencies for acquiring additional footage. Apart from that we will use extensively footage provided by Reuters and APTN,” he added.

    With the soccer fever spreading in India though the country has never qualified for playing in the tournament, ESS is literally on a high. The sports channel is charging $100,000 for 60 seconds footage per match.

    ESS’ euphoria is not shared by all the news channels though they want to provide extensive coverage of Fifa World Cup. The high cost of accessing footage from the rights holder is still an impediment in concluding deals.

    Times Now channels’ parent Times Global Broadcasting vice-president and business head Partho Das Gupta points out that the company is in the process of “closing alliances” with ESS and others.
  • News channels gear up for Clinton

    News channels gear up for Clinton

    It is that time when cameramen will jostle to get a good angle and TV journalists will hanker for a sound byte from the US President, Bill Clinton, and Indian President and Prime Minister. After all, Clinton’s visit to India is big media event.

    And almost all the satellite channels and Doordarshan are trying to find how they can be different from the others. As managing director of TV Eighteen India Ltd, Raghav Bahl, said about the coverage on CNBC India, “It will be hectic time, but we will be focussing more on the business aspect of Clinton;s visit and what it means for the two countries.”

    What’s more, with the Indian government giving permission to almost all the channels to go live, the channel managements are leaving no cameras unturned to bring to their audience round the world the event which is being billed as one of the the biggest media events of 2000.

    CNN which is not only flying down celebrity anchor Riz Khan to do special interviews with the likes of Yashwant Sinha relating to Clinton’s visit, but the channel’s special event team too is coming (with the US president) to see there are no last minute glitches.

    “CNN has planned a special series of stories on the US President’s visit and the countdown has already begun with some stories already on air,” a senior executive Turner International India, the parent company of CNN, said, adding, most of the programmes will be live.

    Zee News, like Star News, will attempt to be different from the likes of CNNs and BBCs. Beginning with a story on presidential aircraft, put out yesterday, Zee News, as a senior executive of Zee pointed out, “will be hoping to do some value additions on the other aspects of Clinton’s visit too, apart from the political and business angles.”

    Since a major portion of Zee News’ audience are Hindi-speaking, the channel is trying to do a voice over in Hindi for important speeches, etc made by the US president.

    There’ll be every day, beginning Monday, a 30-minute programme on Clinton’s visit from 8.30-9 p.m. till Saturday.

    “This apart, we will be following the Clinton family and the President in Hyderabad, Agra, Rajasthan, Mumbai, etc,” a senior executive of Star News said.

    British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is planning one of its biggest ever series of live broadcasts from South Asia during the Clinton visit to the region.

    Special television and radio programmes will be aired from Delhi and Islamabad anchored by the BBC’s South Asia correspondent and regional bureau chief Mike Wooldridge.

    “This is a historic visit for the region and a crucial news story for BBC. South Asia is and always has been one of the cornerstones of BBC’s international broadcasting and this tour will showcase our unrivaled expertise and resources in broadcast news,” Wooldridge said.

    BBC had covered the last presidential visit to the region by Jimmy Carter when many of the news organisations around today did not even exist, according to Wooldridge.

    The BBC’s deputy bureau chief Satish Jacob, who covered the Carter visit to India for the BBC in 1978, will also be part of the commentary team. India correspondent Daniel Lak who is traveling the country with the Clinton entourage and BBC’s Washington correspondent Richard Lister as part of the White House Press Corp to give the inside information from the Clinton camp.

    The live coverage on BBC World television and BBC World Service radio will start from March 20 evening.