AP to have 10 Telugu News channels by year end

The latest news is that, news is big in Andhra Pradesh. The state has a record of seven news channels presently - 'TV9', 'Teja News', 'Vissa News', 'Maa TV News', 'ETV 2', 'NTV' and 'TV5'; which are wooing viewers with sensationalism and breaking news. And all this means that the IT state is known for something else – for having the largest number of dedicated news channels in the country, apart from having the largest cable TV penetration.

'NTV' and 'TV5', were launched recently and are promoted by Narendranath Chowdhary and B. R. Naidu, respectively. Chowdhary has invested about Rs 20 crore and has roped in S. R. Ramanujan, the man behind ETV's successive launch of 11 entertainment channels. On the other hand, Naidu has hired I. Satyanarayana, from Vissa Television.

And the news is not over. Three more Telugu news channels would be launched by the end of this year. The first being 'VTV', funded by a group of NRI's, is already being beamed in the US and will be launched by August this year. While, 'Hyderabad TV', promoted by politician Malepalli Lakshmaiah and 'Telangana TV', promoted by political group TRS are in formative days.

But in a state where Chiranjeevi's gyrations and NTR's histrionics make more news, how justified is this state of affairs? Says Shyam of Teja News, "People are hardly interested in news unless there's a controversy or a coup, they say they prefer to watch Chiranjeevi and Balakrishna. Our brief is to get scoops and make news peppy."

Ravi Prakash, CEO, TV9 agrees. "We have already reached a peak with two channels. When we started the channel, targeted at women and youngsters, it was in response to the fact that people were saturated with just soap operas and needed a change. But AP people are more focused on entertainment."

A report by Starcom Mediavest Group suggests that cable TV advertising in the last fiscal got ten per cent of ad revenues. And the ad potential is growing. Also, with new digital technologies, operational costs of running a news channel have considerably reduced. Channels are also banking on the vast Telugu NRI population across the globe.

As a channel spokesperson of 'VTV' says, "Here, if anything does well, people want to climb on to that bandwagon. For NRI's this is like a power trip."

Manchu Takeshi, an NRI from Los Angeles, explains, "I get one channel right now, but you have to install a separate dish for every channel and it's an expensive affair. I feel a couple of channels are good enough, how different can five to six channels be from one another?"

Courtesy: TelevisionPoint.com