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"In this process fresh capital would be needed and the process
is on to finalise the modalities of investment, including the time
period over which it would be injected," Sahay informed.
Apart from targeting launch of two news channels this month-end,
including one for the Delhi region (project name is D1), Sahara
is looking at starting English and Hindi language dailies from 27
cities. Niche magazines too are within the launch radar.
"We have dailies in Hindi and Urdu and weeklies in English
and Hindi, but the group is looking at new launches with an aim
to corner niche advertising market," Sahay said, pointing out
that some existing products, like the weeklies Sahara Samay
and Sahara Times, may be phased out over a period of time.
The niche magazines that are being proposed would relate to fields
of politics and Parliament, health and lifestyle, sports and entertainment
and business and finance.
"If plans go as scheduled, some of the new offerings from
the Sahara group would see the light of the day before the end of
this year," Sahay said.
As far as overhauling of the existing news channels and new ones
go, the new mantra would be to have a synergy amongst editorial
content, marketing and distribution.
Admitting that distribution and network development has been one
of the weakest links in Sahara's media venture, Sahay explained,
"Sincere attempts are being made to have a mid-course correction
and tested professionals like DK Pandey (who'll head marketing and
all news bureaus) and Tapas Roy (national distribution head) have
been brought in from other companies to beef up the existing set
up."
Without mincing words, Sahay also remarked that Sahara's distribution
team had "let down" the channels in the past. The new
appointments are being made with an eye on these aspects.
Pandey, for example, has worked in companies like Zee Telefilms,
Siti Cable and Reliance Infocomm, while Roy has had successful stints
at Star, BBC World and Siti Cable. In fact, along with the likes
of Amitabh Srivastava, who now heads Disney's distribution activities
in India, Roy is considered one of the top few distribution whizzes
in the country.
That some sort of thinking is going on within the group to strategise
for the future, gets amplified when Sahay says that 80-odd cities
are being identified where the content on the respective regional
channels would be tailored for "appointment viewing".
It just needs to be seen whether this time round Sahara manages
to get its act right, unlike most times in the past when efforts
have failed to bring desired results. For example, Sahara One entertainment
channel is present on almost 80 per cent of the cable networks,
but in over 60 per cent such networks, it's nowhere near prime or
tuneable bandwidth. Result: fuzzy signals and irritated viewers.
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