Indian TV sinario going to be change very soon

By Sabyasachi Amitav


Indian TV sinario going 2 change very soon with lots of upcoming channels awaiting for on Air. Already INX's 9x Entertainment, BAG films news channel 24 hours, also some regional channels like Jaya Live and Jaya music recently on air and piping more for others.

Still the proposals for 71 private satellite TV channels for permission to uplink from India are at various stages of scrutiny in accordance with the existing up linking guidelines. The highest number of proposals-seven-is from three companies linked to the NDTV group. There are four proposals each from Zee Telefilms, BAG Films group and the TV 18 group, three each from Malar Network, Maa TV Network and STV Enterprises. Similarly two proposals come from the INX group, Sahara India Communication and ETC. The rest of the proposals are from companies wanting to beam single channels.

Similarly the Reliance-Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, which has been steadily widening its screen in the media and entertainment industry, is gearing up for a big leap. It is believed that the company would launch multiple channels in both the entertainment and non-entertainment space. Sources close to the deal confirmed the development, saying that these channels were slated for a phased rollout beginning 2008.

Sources said the company also planned to launch news channels and channels in different genres such as general entertainment, movies and music.The company has a presence in the radio business (BIG 92.7 FM).Similarly Ronnie Screwvala-promoted UTV Software Communicationsis to launch a news channel soon, having launched a youth channel last month. It has plans to launch multiple channels in different languages in India and Southeast Asia.

INX Media, led by Indrani Mukerjea, wife of Peter Mukerjea, a former Star Group chief executive officer, will launch 12 channels in entertainment and news. Already the 9x entertainment lunched in the first phase. In the second phase, it will launch three regional channels, three regional music channels and three city-specific news channels.

TV18 and Viacom's joint venture Viacom18 will roll out a Hindi entertainment channel in addition to several niche channels. TV18 will launch a Marathi news channel in association with Maharashtra-based Lokmat group of newspapers. BAG Films & Media, promoted by Anuradha Prasad, is also in the race. The company is planning entertainment and lifestyle channels under BAG Glamour and news channels under BAG Newsline.
Similarly BAG Films set to launch Lifestyle,Spiritual & Entertainment Channels. BAG Films and Media Ltd has announced the launch of Entertainment (E-24) ,Lifestyle (Life24) and Spiritual (Bliss24) television channels. The company lunched a 24 hour Hindi News Channel, with the tagline ‘Nazar Har Khabar Par’ on dec 13th.

In 2006, NDTV too announced its partnership with filmmaker Karan Johar for non-news channels, starting with Hindi General Entertainment and expanding into movies, regional, youth and kids programming. These will be spearheaded by former Star India CEO Sameer Nair.

Similarly in the other side the business of news channels continues to grow at 8-10 per cent annually. The growth has helped small and medium advertisers.

one-third of all television channels in India are news and current affairs. About 44 news channels in Hindi, English and regional languages beam into 71 million homes with access to cable and satellite TV.

About 10-12 per cent of total advertising money spent on television goes to news channels. This year, news channels will generate about Rs 700 crore (Rs 7 billion) in advertising revenues, compared to Rs 620 crore (Rs 6.2 billion) in 2006, according to industry sources.

Growth of news channels has happened alongside the growth of in the number of cable and satellite homes. Between 1998 and 2002, there were not more than 8-11 news channels beaming across 20-30 million homes.

The advertising revenue pie from news channels was not more than Rs 70-80 crore (Rs 700-800 million). Between 2002 and 2007, more than 30 channels have added to the Regional news Major news channels are now looking for growth in regional pockets of the country.