SAB to launch news channel

NEW DELHI: There is yet another player in the overcrowded TV news channel space. Notwithstanding cut-throat competition among half-a-dozen news channels, Sri Adhikari Brothers (SAB) has decided to pump in Rs 25 crore into a new bilingual current affairs and news channel in April 2004.
SAB group has floated a new company SAB Samachar Ltd, and a formal application for the approval of uplinking has been submitted to the I&B ministry.The channel will be owned by Gautham Adhikari and Markhand Adhikari.
"We will be like a daily magazine," says Markhand Adhikari, V-C, SAB TV. "It will be a niche channel targeting audiences across the country. Our base will be in Delhi and Mumbai." Madhavi Mutatkar, who was earlier with Zee, will be the new president of SAB Samachar. While the channel will be by and large in Hindi, there will be two hours of programming in English.
SAB''s model is loosely based on Fox News'' analysis approach in the US in the 1990s, when it had to take on CNN, NBC and other public broadcasters. Thus the as-yet unnamed channel will have current affairs programmes and documentaries, but no newsreaders — a news ticker will fulfil that role.
Quoting TAM figures, SAB said 3 hours of current affairs weekly content in SAB TV has a Gross Rating Point of 5.1 compared to NDTV 24X7 and Headlines Today, where the entire week''s (168 hours) GRP''s are 4.8 and 0.9 per cent respectively. GRPs are collective viewership ratings of the TRPs. The TV news space is set to increase with another half-a-dozen news channels on the anvil.