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BANGALORE:
Hyderabad-based Associated Broadcasting Company Pvt. Ltd.
(ABCL) which airs news channels under the brand name TV9,
plans to start a Kannada GEC and a Kannada religious channel
on the lines of its Telugu counterpart Sanskruti. The
plan is to launch these channels within the next year.
As
reported earlier in Indiantelevision.com, TV9 aims to launch
its Gujarati news channel with the main uplink studio in Ahmedabad
on 2 October, while plans for its Mumbai Bollywood news channel
and TV9 Mumbai have been delayed.
"We
started the TV9 Kannada news channel around six months ago.
We are encouraged by the popularity of our news channel
to expand in this marketplace,"
says TV9 Karnataka director Mahendra Mishra.
TV9
ratings shot up considerably in week 17 (C & S 4+) of
this year when it beamed the failed rescue attempts of Sandeep,
a boy who fell into a bore well and later died. As per a TV9
release, the channel's ratings during that week surged to
6.95, far ahead of all the other Kannada channels except the
Sun group’s Udaya.
TV9 footage of that event will now form part of a movie being
planned by Kannada producer Mohan and financer Ganesh, says
Mishra. The movie will be dedicated to Sandeep, for whose
family the channel has been able to raise Rs 500,000.
In
last week’s Kannada film release ‘Mathad Mathad
Mallige’, or ‘Speak, speak Jasmine’ (the scented
flower), TV9 anchor Gowrish Akki plays an important role -
that of an anchor of a channel. The movie is generally against
globalization and land encroachment.
Another
Kannada movie on the floors is likely to be named ‘Ee
TV9’ or ‘This is TV9’. The storyline is based
on a young couple in love, with the male lead trying to extricate
himself out of the crime world in which he was caught with
a lot of support from the TV channel – TV9.
"People
treat us as a channel that will solve issues. On an average
we receive between 5000 and 10000 SMS messages, especially
when a programme focuses on a particular issue,” says
Mishra.
Some
of the regular advertisers on the channel in Karnataka include
Reliance General Insurance, Radio Mirchi, Mirakul Oil, Airtel,
Videocon, Canara Bank, Prestolite, Chemmenur Jewelers, No
marks Fairness Cream and Ajay toothpaste, among others.
The
free-to-air TV9 Kannada signal is available on Tata Sky’s
DTH platform, but not so far on Dish TV. It is also available
on the cable networks.
ABCL
is 80 per cent owned by iLabs, a venture fund, and Unified
Group. The balance 20 per cent is held by Ravi Prakash and
five other professionals.
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