MUMBAI: The regional news market is witnessing the winds of change. Numerous broadcasters are entering this market by launching free-to-air (FTA) channels in their respective genres.
In the regional market, Hindi, with over 20 channels, is leading the race in the number of channels followed by Kannada with 15 channels and Telugu is just a scratch behind with 14 channels.
The latest entrant in the Kannada news market is Swaraj Express SMBC. The network is now going to focus on South India with its upcoming news channel Swaraj Kannada. The date of launch is not yet fixed, but the channel has commenced its testing from 18 March 2018.
The channel is only available on Tata Sky as channel number 582. Hathway Cable has added the channel to LCN 34 in Bangalore.
It will be an FTA channel with 24x7 news programming. The format of the channel will be MPEG4/DVBS2. The frequency rate is 3755 Hz. The testing for transmission service has started on INSAT4A satellite at 83 degrees east. The news channel will get the satellite transponder downlink signal from eight feet to 16 feet C-band dish antenna.
With 15 news channels in the Kannada market, there will be a war to gain eyeballs. iTV Network in December 2017 expanded into the regional news space with the launch of a dedicated channel for Gujarat- India News Gujarat. It is expanding further to the southern market and planning to launch News X Kannada.
Broadcast Audience Research Council all India data week 12 has seen a good growth in the Kannada news channels rating compared to week 11. The top five channels in the Kannada news genre are TV9 Kannada with 56147 impressions (000s) sum compared to 52046 impressions (000s) sum last week. Public TV at the second spot had 42154 impressions (000s) sum against 36531 impressions (000s) sum in week 11. Suvarna News 24x7 garnered 17258 impressions (000s) sum at the third position. News18 Kannada is at the fourth position with 16000 impressions (000s) sum against 13174 impressions (000s) sum last week followed by Dighvijay 24x7 News with 9249 impressions (000s) sum.
The growth of FTA channels is one of the most important factors for TV viewership to keep going along with digitisation and better distribution.
In the report ‘The changing face of TV in India’, BARC pointed that pay TV viewership fell from 77 per cent to 69 per cent, while the FTA viewing has gone up from 23 per cent to 31 per cent.
Also Read :
Focus Group to launch Kannada news channel
Making the news: A look at what news broadcasters did in 2017
