MUMBAI: With action hotting up on the news channels front, what with India TV unleashing a string of sting operations relating to sex offenses and the casting couch in the entertainment industry and elsewhere, Delhi-based STV Enterprises Ltd has decided to take the plunge into the news channel fray. STV is all set to launch a news channel dedicated to the north Indian state of Haryana.

STV Enterprises Ltd promoter JK Jain confirmed the development and said, "The 24-hour news channel catering to Harayana state is slated to launch on 14 July, which is likely to be followed by some other ones too in the
future.”

STV Enterprises already runs the low-cost, but revenue generating Punjab Today and Punjabi music channel Balle Balle.

Pointing out the company is still “toying” with a name for the proposed news channel, Jain said some of titles being considered are Haryana News or Haryana Today.

The Haryana-specific news channel, which will primarily be a Hindi language channel, was earlier introduced as a half-hour bulletin on Punjab Today where the fine-tuning of news flow was done. Later, it was expanded to a four-hour bulletin on the channel.

According to Jain, "We decided to convert Haryana specific news into a full fledged channel after receiving positive response form viewers."

Justifying starting region-specific channels, Jain said his products will attract both local and national advertisers. At present, Punjab Today has brands like Ambhuja Cement, Godrej, Samsung and Coca-Cola advertising
heavily in an effort to target rural markets.

Sanjay Dwivedi, a person with a TV background having worked in places like the now defunct BiTV and the expanding Sahara, will be the chief executive officer and editor for the Haryana-specific news channel, while Jain will retain his post as the editor-in-chief.

The proposed digital free-to-air channel would beam through Thaicom-3 satellite as its other siblings. Jain pointed out that though the company uplinks its other channels to Thaicom via VSNL from India, an application for a
teleport licence has been made, which will make the uplinking procedure less cumbersome and easier.

Also in the pipeline from the STV stable are channels for the Kashmir and Delhi regions, Jain says.

The Haryana channel, besides being dedicated to hard-core news, will also broadcast culture, lifestyle and humour-based programmes, apart from agriculture-related shows that would be aimed at benefiting farmers of the region.

At present, the north Indian region has quite a few region specific news channels. These include the newly launched Total TV and a proposed product from the Sahara stable going under the project name of D1.