Manisha Talwar Rana of LG Electronics shares her views on the evolution of Indian television, which has now taken the form of ‘genre hypnotism’ or, in simpler jargon, ‘programme cloning’.
The first big crisis for journalism came after 9/11 and the media industry failed that test… The essential crisis was – ‘what is the role of journalism in the face of a national crisis?’ The media industry globally failed that test. They became polarised very quickly and began to reflect largely their government’s view, observes Jehangir Pocha, Editor, Businessworld.
Insurance company Future Generali, a joint venture between Pantaloon Retail India and Italian insurance firm The Generali Group, has assigned its creative duties to Ogilvy & Mather. The estimated account size of the business is pegged at around Rs 40 crore annually. Saatchi & Saatchi is the incumbent agency.
Rachana Television Pvt Ltd on October 9 launched its Telugu exclusive women centric channel Vanitha. This is the third channel from the group after news channel NTV and devotional channel Bhakti.
Tata Sky aims to give a ‘Plus-size’ TV viewing experience with the launch of its personal video recorder technology, called Tata Sky+. Priced at Rs 8,999 for the digicomp, with an additional Rs 1,000 as installation charges, the cost too comes in ‘Plus’ proportions. Tata Sky+ service would be rolled out in a phased manner and supported by a 360 degree campaign.
ICL Season-2 got off to an exciting start on October 10 in Hyderabad. Times Business Solutions Ltd has joined the T20 Championships as sponsor for two of the participating teams – Chennai Superstars and Mumbai Champs – under the TimesJobs.com Chennai Superstars and MagicBricks.com Mumbai Champs banners.
TBWA\India has been witnessing a lot of action of late. Post its acquisition by TBWA\Worldwide and Omnicom, the agency has been beefing up its creative team. The latest addition is Ambareesh Chakraborty, who has been brought on board to head the creative function for the agency’s Mumbai and Pune offices as Senior Creative Director.
Going local is a mantra adopted by The Times of India to create greater connect with its readers in the various markets that it is present in. The latest such endeavour is the launch of a weekly hyper local supplement for the Sunday edition of The Times of India, Chennai. This four-paged colour supplement covers area specific neighbourhood news.
FTK Technologies Ltd, a desktop software company, has assigned its creative mandate to Rediffusion Y&R Delhi. TME has bagged the media duties while Rediffusion PR will be handling the company’s public relations. FTK will be spending $2-3 million over a period of 18 months on media duties.
iContract, the one-to-one communication division of Contract Advertising, has elevated Nishad Ramachandran to Head of the agency pan India. Prior to this elevation, Ramachandran was Vice-President and Group Creative Director at iContract.
Perspectrum Consultancy, the integrated marketing consultancy division of Percept Ltd, has appointed Rajiv Lal as Chief Executive Officer. Lal would be reporting to Shailendra Singh, Joint Managing Director, and Harinder Singh, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director, both from Percept Ltd.
NDTV has earned consolidated revenues of Rs 128 crore during the second quarter ended September 30 in FY09, as compared to Rs 77.50 crore during the corresponding of the previous fiscal. However, the media conglomerate has reported a net loss of Rs 119 crore on account of the entertainment side of the business being in its early growth phase.
A long-standing demand of private FM radio players is set to be fulfilled by the year-end. After Telecom Regulatory Authority of India recommended news in private FM radio, albeit with some restrictions, the I&B Ministry has now reportedly given its nod to 261 private FM channels to air news and current affairs programmes produced by AIR.