ITV

Tag: Telugu news channel

  • Zee 24 Gantalu faces acid test

    Zee 24 Gantalu faces acid test

    MUMBAI: Change is in the air at Zee Media Corp Ltd’s (ZMCL) Telugu news channel Zee 24 Gantalu. Reason: the management has decided to restructure the straggler in the ZMCL portfolio, which has been buffeted by competition in the hyper-news state of Andhra Pradesh.

    ZMCL had set up Zee 24 Gantalu in a 50:50 association with a local politician Satyanarayanan Botsa, whose brother Sateesh Botsa ran the channel.

    “It is not viable for us to run it in its current state. We have invested heavily in Zee 24 Gantalu and have tried many different strategies to make it work. But it has been losing a lot of money,” says ZMCL CEO Alok Agrawal. “We are currently reevaluating the options before us.”

    Among the options before it is shutting down the channel. But Agrawal says no decision has been taken in this direction. “We will know clearly in a couple of weeks what we will do,” he points out.

    What is clear is that the association between Botsa and ZMCL will not continue with Zee 24 Gantalu, if one goes by what Sateesh Botsa has told indiantelevision.com. Quoting him: “It was a management call to stop the channel due to several reasons. Now it is completely a ZMCL property. As a news channel it has stopped but they (Zee) may want to continue it as another channel.”

     

    Alok Agrawal admits that the channel has been incurring losses and that they are looking at restructuri

    A surf through the Telugu news channels space shows that Zee 24 Gantalu is airing only entertainment video footage and fillers without any ticker as of now. Additionally, rival channels told indiantelevision.com that Zee 24 Gantalu staff has started approaching them for jobs. An employee stated that the management has hammered out a severance package under the direction of ZMCL CFO Dinesh Garg which includes three months pay. Agrawal however stated that this is not true and that it could be possible that employees have chosen to look for jobs, because they know that a major restructuring is planned. Zee 24 Gantalu reportedly has 300 employees working with it.

    The channel has been in the news recently because of the cases which have been filed against it for the stories it has aired – the latest one involving the Andhra Pradesh Police DGP V Dinesh Reddy. According to sources, this was one of the reasons that prompted Botsa to opt out.

    Who chose to opt out is not clear, but clearly a new chapter is about to be written in the Zee 24 Gantalu saga.

  • Zee News Ltd to shutter Telugu news channel

    Zee News Ltd to shutter Telugu news channel

    MUMBAI: Zee News Ltd (ZNL) is retreating the Telugu news market. Zee 24 Gantalu has decided to close down next month as it struggled to become economically viable in a crowded marketplace where there are too many politically-oriented channels.

    “24 Gantalu will close down on 20 September. There are 14 Telugu news channels operating in that market and two more are launching. They are politically driven and it does not make sense to continue in that market,” a source familiar with the development said.

    The TV Telugu news ad market is pegged at Rs 1.2 billion. The market leader TV9 takes away a major chunk of this amount, according to an industry source. Price wars are rampant, making channels sell to advertisers at miserable rates.

    “The entire Telugu TV news business is becoming unviable because of too many players and abnormally low ad rates. Other interests rather than business seems to be the primary motive,” says a senior news channel executive.

    ZNL’s decision also comes ahead of its plans to launch an English-language general news channel that will consume heavy capital. The closure of 24 Ghantalu will help cut down ZNL’s losses from new businesses and ease pressure on the company’s operating profit if it goes ahead with the launch of the English channel.

    Indiantelevision.com had reported that ZNL is planning to launch an English news channel towards the exit quarter of the fiscal as digitisation settles in the four metros.

    The operating loss of 24 Ghantalu in FY’12 stood at approximately Rs 140 million, the source said.

    ZNL had reported losses of Rs 227.4 million on a revenue of Rs 131.9 million for the fiscal from its new businesses that include Zee News Uttar Pradesh/Uttarakhand and 24 Gantalu.

    “If the English channel launch is on, the shutting down of a loss-making channel will be seen as a positive move. It will soften ZNL’s pressure on Ebitda from the launch of an English news channel that will consume anywhere between Rs 2.5-3 billion over the first three years,” a media analyst said on condition of anonymity.

    ZNL had reported Ebitda of Rs 533.5 million in FY’12 on a consolidated operating revenue of Rs 3.07 billion. The company runs a cluster of channels including Zee News, Zee Business, Zee 24 Taas, Zee Punjabi and 24 Ghanta.

  • ‘We are open to a foreign equity partner for the English channels’ : Laxmi Narain Goel – Zee News Ltd MD

    ‘We are open to a foreign equity partner for the English channels’ : Laxmi Narain Goel – Zee News Ltd MD

     Zee News Ltd (ZNL) plans to invest Rs 5 billion in a slew of channels over two years, expanding its presence in regional markets and new segments.

    Immediately on the agenda is the launch of a Tamil general entertainment and a Telugu news channel. Plans are also afoot to launch an English business and a global news channel.

    The company is also bringing to its bouquet mix a clutch of regional movie channels. It will soon apply for a Bengali movie channel while Zee Talkies is being transferred from sister company Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd.

    In an interview with Sibabrata Das, Zee News Ltd managing director Laxmi Narain Goel chalks out the company’s growth roadmap.

    Excerpts:

    When Zee News Ltd was spun into a separate entity a few years back, it was making a loss due to the Telugu channel. How did things turn around?
    The losses from the new businesses have substantially reduced. Zee Telugu, in fact, should break even in the third quarter of this fiscal and Zee Kannada in the subsequent quarter. Our turnover has also gone up from Rs 2 billion to Rs 3.58 billion (standalone) for the fiscal ended 31 March 2008, with Zee Marathi and Zee Bangla seeing exponential growth in the last one year.

    Is the company still taking a cautious approach and waiting for some recent channels to break even before launching new ones?
    We are launching a Tamil general entertainment channel (GEC) with an investment plan of Rs 900 million in September as the Telugu and Kannada channels are close to earning profits. The Telugu news channel will launch in October while the Malayalam GEC should make its appearance in the next fiscal.

    ZNL is also planning to launch an English business and a global news channel. Do you see this the right stage for the company to leap into such high-cost investments?
    We plan to invest Rs 5 billion by FY’10 which will include the launch of several channels. Our intention is to have a complete presence in all the segments.

    The company is on a high growth curve and expects to clock Rs 3.55 billion in advertising revenues for FY’09, a 25 per cent jump over the prior year. Subscription revenues are expected to grow even faster, soaring to Rs 1.19 billion (from Rs 667.5 million in FY’08). The Telugu and Kannada channels have started generating pay revenues from the last quarter of FY’08 and would only add to this growth.

    Will you be inducting a foreign equity partner for the English channels?
    We are open to bringing in an equity partner. But all will depend on what proposals we receive from whom and what model is on offer.

    ZNL so far has been a mix of news channels and regional language GECs. Will we also see regional movie channels forming the bouquet?
    We will soon be applying to the information and broadcasting ministry for clearance to operate a Bengali movie channel. We are also transferring Marathi movie channel Zee Talkies from Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (Zeel) to Zee News Ltd. The broad plan is to bring regional movie channels under the company. This will give us a unique mix and add to the growth of the company.
    ‘We plan to invest Rs 5 billion. Our intention is to have a complete presence in all the segments‘

    Zee News has also started a franchising model to enter into new markets. Will you restrict this to smaller markets where it doesn’t make commercial sense for you to enter directly?
    The first such channel will roll out in Chattisgarh with SB Multimedia as our local partner. We will be leveraging our brand while the local partner will make the investments. We hope to strike such deals with other players in these smaller markets. Once we have a cluster of such channels, we can sell as a package to advertisers and command better rates. Significant revenues can then flow in from the franchising model. It can turn out to be a successful business model.

    What made Zee change the positioning of its flagship Hindi news channel?
    We have relaunched as a serious news channel and see it as a differentiator in a segment that is witnessing lots of competition. We have decided not to go the tabloid or sensationalism way. This is not the first time that we are changing our positioning. But our motto continues to be the same: We will show what interests the masses and is in the interests of the nation.

    When you dramatised the ‘Gudiya’ story, was this to do more with ratings than anything else?
    We saw the story as having a genuine mass interest among our audiences. It was a national interest story.

    Isn’t it time for the Hindi business news channel to get a makeover?
    We will be relaunching Zee Business and making it more market-oriented. But we will not just be a stock market channel; we will address all kinds of markets and segments.

    Do you see the surge in personnel and distribution costs upsetting the profitability of the TV news business?
    There is a lot of new manpower and talent available in the market today. The supply can only increase. I believe that manpower costs as a share to revenues will not go up, but indeed fall.

    As far as distribution expense is concerned, the industry will take 3-4 years to settle down. But with DTH (direct-to-home), HITS (Headend-In-The-Sky) and new platforms emerging, we could see carriage costs peaking once the digital systems take off in a big way.

    Zee is continuing to bleed in the Gujarat market. Are there plans to address this by launching a Gujarati news channel to support the GEC?
    Zee Gujarati is making a small loss. The local viewers watch a lot of Hindi entertainment content. But we have no plans to launch a Gujarati news channel.

    Why is the ZNL scrip lowly priced in the market?
    Zee News Ltd is a terribly undervalued stock. It is a profitable company in the news business, has leading regional GECs, and will continue to post strong subscription growth. The market should adequately react to this.