Broadcast Worldwide Business Development director Pradipto Sircar refuses to be cowed down by rival regional satellite channels that are stealing viewers, while the four Tara channels are yet to set the TRPs on fire.
The coming months, he says, belong to news programming that will be beefed up on all four - Tara Marathi, Tara Bangla, Tara Gujarati and Tara Marathi. There‘s more in the pipeline, but plans will be unveiled only after they are firmed up. Excerpts from a conversation with Aparna Joshi -
In this intensely competitive regional channel market, how are the Tara channels doing? What is Tara‘s future?
While the Tara channels are not doing well in the metros, we are doing unexpectedly better in the interiors. In the satellite channel scenario, Tara ranks third. But the channel reaches 80 per cent of the population, say in Maharashtra. We now plan to focus on news programming, which has helped ETV score over rival channels in this state. We had novel programming like telecast of Marathi plays, but returns on investments have not been enough.
For Tara Bangla as well as for Tara Marathi, we are planning to introduce several news programmes, which will focus on local news, from the gram panchayat level up. Tara Bangla is also the first regional channel to start Hindi news shows in the late night slot. The channel currently has 13 hours of fresh programming from the beginning of the new year. Tara Marathi should see a similar initiative soon.
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