TV Today Network's new channel will be a complete English news channel, and is expected to go on air around mid-February 2003. At the same time, Aaj Tak, the company's Hindi news channel will become a pay-channel.
Since the English channel will be targeted at a niche segment, the company has initiated a new brand strategy. The channel will have a new look and feel, said top executives of TV Today.
"Our Hindi news channel has been a success. The past two years have been very fruitful and encouraging. To take forward, we plan to launch the country's first English news channel. The plans for the same are in the final stages, and the channel is expected to start broadcasting by mid-February 2003," G Krishnan, chief executive, said.
The company expects that with the launch of the channel, which will be free-to-air to begin with, will help it garner a bigger market share in markets such as south India.
'The non-Hindi market offers us a great opportunity with the English channel," he said.
Krishnan said the advertisement pie for the news channel market is growing and is expected to reach Rs 500 crore in the next two years. TV Today is targeting a major share.
The company is also finalising plans to emerge as one of the biggest media conglomerate in Asia.
Apart from the scheduled launch of another channel in India, the group also plans to take Aaj Tak into the UK and the US, with sizeable local news content.
"We see the sizeable Indian population in the two markets a good target. The news would have good local news content. We would be beaming different feeds for these markets," he said.
The group is also looking at the direct-to-home platform as an potential business operations for it.
"We are looking at being a content provider for DTH platform. We do not have any plans to enter the DTH market as a platform provider," Krishnan said.
The group will launch its FM radio operations in Delhi and Kolkata in February 2003. "The Mumbai operations are well on track. We expect to repeat the same success in the Delhi and Kolkata markets," he said.
Aaj Tak also claimed that it enjoys 55 per cent market share among the news channels and a reach of 30 million households, the highest among the news channels.