NEW DELHI: First there was one. In a quiet way, very unlike the group, Sahara Samay Rashtriya, the national news channel from the Subrata Roy-promoted Sahara India, will make its debut few hours from now around 7 pm.

The big bang announcement about the launch of the news channel(s) is expected around month-end from Sahara and a week before that a media campaign is also slated to break.

From this evening, the national news channel, headed by former NDTV/Star News anchor Arup Ghosh, would be made available countrywide through the IRDs. For some time now, Sahara had been testing the signals and the national news channel was visible in Rajasthan and surrounding areas as the satellite signals had been tuned to be received by the boxes meant for the Rajasthan-specific news channel when it is launched later as part of phased launches of seven region-specific news channels.

Last month while talking to indiantelevision.com at the corporate headquarters in Lucknow city, Sahara group's managing worker a.k.a. chairman and managing director Subrata Roy had said that the total media project, envisaging print and electronic medium ventures, would attract investments of over Rs 6 billion.

Roy had also asserted that over 70 per cent of the total investment envisaged had already been made and that the group was close to striking a content deal with TV Asia, once promoted by film star Amitabh Bachchan and another NRI businessman.

Sahara sources today indicated that not all the aspects of the digital free to air national news channel would be unveiled at one go and only over a period of time the new shows and concepts would be introduced.

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