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Tag: Pradipto Sircar

  • Sircar joins Sahara as senior VP, sales & mktg

    Sircar joins Sahara as senior VP, sales & mktg

    MUMBAI: Pradipto Sircar, senior VP, ad sales at Sabe TV, has moved to Sahara as senior vice president, sales and marketing.
     
     
    Sircar will be looking after all the Sahara channels, including the newly started news channels, the soon to be rejigged main entertainment channel as well as the tabloids the Sahara group plans to unleash across the country.

    Sircar, who joined on 3 April, says his brief would be to get advertising on the channels moving at ‘space shuttle speed’, as this, the fourth year of Sahara, would be a ‘critical year’ for the network. Sircar will be reporting to Sahara Television president Satish Menon.

    Sircar earlier headed the Tara channels as business development director Broadcast Worldwide, before moving to Sabe TV last year. Sabe has now got itself a new president in Kanta Advani, to head the network’s advertising and marketing functions.

  • ‘Tara is doing much better in the interiors’ : Pradipto Sircar Broadcast Worldwide Business Development director

    ‘Tara is doing much better in the interiors’ : Pradipto Sircar Broadcast Worldwide Business Development director

    Broadcast Worldwide Business Development director Pradipto Sircar refuses to be cowed down by rival regional satellite channels that are stealing viewers, while the four Tara channels are yet to set the TRPs on fire.

    The coming months, he says, belong to news programming that will be beefed up on all four – Tara Marathi, Tara Bangla, Tara Gujarati and Tara Marathi. There‘s more in the pipeline, but plans will be unveiled only after they are firmed up. Excerpts from a conversation with Aparna Joshi –

    In this intensely competitive regional channel market, how are the Tara channels doing? What is Tara‘s future?
    While the Tara channels are not doing well in the metros, we are doing unexpectedly better in the interiors. In the satellite channel scenario, Tara ranks third. But the channel reaches 80 per cent of the population, say in Maharashtra. We now plan to focus on news programming, which has helped ETV score over rival channels in this state. We had novel programming like telecast of Marathi plays, but returns on investments have not been enough.

    For Tara Bangla as well as for Tara Marathi, we are planning to introduce several news programmes, which will focus on local news, from the gram panchayat level up. Tara Bangla is also the first regional channel to start Hindi news shows in the late night slot. The channel currently has 13 hours of fresh programming from the beginning of the new year. Tara Marathi should see a similar initiative soon.

    Tara reaches nearly 80 per cent of the population in Maharashtra

     

     

    Where is the money coming from?
    Crombie International has made good its commitment of $ 800,000 already. That money has already been channelised to various uses, Tara Bangla being one of them. Currently, the investment is coming from our regular institutional investors like IDBI and others. We are now looking for strategic tie-ups with software producers for making news programmes which will be the mainstay of the Tara channels.

    Is your strategy to employ classified advertising on the channel paying off?
    Classified advertising has been an unexpected success. We kicked off the campaign without any dedicated sales force or depots. But it did very well in the rest of Maharashtra, where small firms and outfits are always on the lookout for niche media. The low rates, the visual appeal of the ads and the direct appeal to target viewers has been a great success. We are now planning to open classified depots and appoint agents in various towns in Maharashtra to expand this operation.

    We are looking at strategic tie ups with software producers for making news programmes

    What has been the strategy behind revamping Tara Bangla?
    Tara Bangla too targets the rest of Bengal more than just the viewer in Kolkata. We have tied up with an independent software producer, Rainbow, which provides news programmes as well as movies and other entertainment programmes. The local Hindi news bulletin in the late night slot too has touched a chord with non Bangla speaking population.

    What will be strategy behind the revamp of Tara Marathi?
    There will be extensive news programmes on the channel to get viewers in the rest of Maharashtra, where we reach 80 per cent of the state. There will also be a stress on programmes that revive the rural and folk traditions of the state, with shows on lavani (folk dances), natyasangeet (music theatre) and such other forms that often do not have any other platform to air. Currently, 80 per cent of programming on Tara Marathi is re-runs, but all that will change in the next couple of months.

    What about Tara Gujarati and Tara Punjabi?
    Tara Gujarati does very well in the interiors of Gujarat but since all the people meters are installed in Ahmedabad, the ratings do not reflect actual viewership. We will be beefing up news programmes on Tara Gujarati as well, to counter competition from rival channels. Tara Punjabi is the last on our revamp list, but it will eventually be a news, music and Gurbani channel.

    What about other initiatives on Tara?
    A Ganesh Utsav programme last year drew an excellent response from the rest of Maharashtra, with several organizations vying for the best pandal prize. We also brought out Punjabi and Marathi audio cassettes of songs, and another in Bangla recently, titled Club Bengal, which has already had three re-prints.
  • Tara aims to be the new star on the regional channel horizon

    Tara aims to be the new star on the regional channel horizon

    It may be down, but it’s not yet out. Broadcast Worldwide, which promotes regional language channels Tara is planning to beef up its news programming to stay afloat in the intensely competitive market.

    While Tara Bangla has already received a shot in the arm at the beginning of the new year with a variety of localizing initiatives and has started airing 13 hours of fresh programming daily, Tara Marathi is next in line for revival. Sources say a massive investment of upto Rs 1470 million is likely to made for resurrecting Tara Marathi. The government of Maharashtra is likely to be involved in a strategic tie-up that will help Tara Marathi revive from its current somnolent state.

    Currently 80 per cent of programming on Tara Marathi is re-runs. But all this will soon change if the joint venture comes through, say sources. The venture has been on the cards for the last six months and if finalized, the results would show in the next two months, they add. Tara Marathi creative director Shobha De said recently that the revamped Tara would focus on rural and folk traditions of Maharashtra and would attempt to “reflect the aspirations of the common Maharashtrian.”

    Although Broadcast Worldwide Business Development director Pradipto Sircar is unwilling to divulge details of the proposed tie-up, he says programming on Tara Marathi will anyway be beefed up with a focus on news programmes in the next couple of months. “Instead of concentrating on Mumai, we are looking at the rest of Maharashtra, where we have a strong viewer base,” he says. The channel, which started with novel programming like telecast of well known Marathi plays (a weak point with Maharashtrian viewers), could not keep up the tempo due to dearth of returns on investments. While the channel is languishing behind Alpha, ETV and DD Sahyadri, the channel reaches 80 per cent of the population in the rest of the state, Sircar says.

    However, with the Tara Bangla experiment working well, he is upbeat about Marathi and shortly, Tara Gujarati. With Tara Bangla, BWW has tried a novel tack. It has tied up with Rainbow, which provides Khas Khabar, local news for the Bangla speaking populace, apart from movies, antakshari and sports programmes. Tara Bangla is also the first regional channel to provide local Hindi news in the late night slot, for viewers who are not too conversant with the local language, but need local news. Similar arrangements are likely to be in the pipeline for Tara Marathi, which will feature local news, right from the gram panchayat level up. The company has already had a rationalizing exercise, and is now down to a far slimmer 150 from a grossly over manned 400. 

    While Tara Punjabi will be the last of the four to be revived, Sircar says it will eventually be a news, music and Gurbani channel.