News you can Enjoy

Times Group has finally joined the battle for supremacy in the English TV News channel market with TIMES NOW, the second offering from by Times Group after Zoom established itself as a lifestyle and gossip channel. The channel has already lured the cable operators and booked a prime frequency slot for itself and promos featuring well known personalities from Movies,Sports,Politics are there on the air much before the official launch of the channel on 26^th

of January. The channel like its other sister brands( indiatimes.com & Zoom) will piggyback on The Times of India, so be prepared to see reports in Times asking you to tune to the channel. I think it will be more like English version of Aaj Tak/Star News and it may succeed also. The reason is we watch News much like we watch dramas and reality shows. One example is Star Ananda the Bangla news channel which rose to No.1 position within few weeks of its launch,like Star News it also served news as a drama. Go to any house,you will see people enjoying news which criticizes politicians or Ganguly for that matter. We don't want to see the serious issues but we like to see anything which makes us feel that we are not the only wrong doers but everyone in this country is.

This is what Times of India does, it gives everyone the power to criticize the government or cricket players. And till now channels like NDTV 24*7 or the new one CNN-IBN haven't been able to create a image like that. They are more upmarket and NDTV Profit is more like celebrity lifestyle channel with shows on bikes, golf and gadgets. CNBC TV18 is a great news channel and it gives loads of information. Headlines Today is not sharp as it claims but has good coverage on sports. But still the battle could turn out to be difficult as CNN-IBN also looks ready to tap the same audience with India TV styled stings. What i expect from these news channels is more international news as both(CNN-IBN & TIMES NOW(Reuters) have international partners and there is no focus on international news by news channels these days.

It may take some time to take the share away from NDTV but if NDTV is hearing please reduce the ad break duration for your news programs otherwise the long breaks will force the viewers to tune to other No.1 wannabes.