Uday Shankar, CEO Editor & Director Star News

Perspective of private news in the country

The news genre grew and evolved in the country under the shadow of DD. Even the first few bulletins done by private players like TV Today and others happened on DD. All these current affairs bulletins followed the government discipline. They could be slightly cheeky at times but the news had to be regimented and whetted by DD. So, this is how private news began in the country. In this environment, Zee News as an independent private player managed to do a few things on its own.

Till 2000, the genre could not really grow as there were technological limitations. Later, Aaj Tak introduced the idea of live breaking news. Some of the major developments that news channels grew on were the Agra Summit and the Gujarat earthquake. But later on, the space stagnated in the sense it was `vanilla news' day in and day out. It worked for some time but gradually the novelty factor wore out.

The challenges ahead. for the news Genre

Inspite of so many channels and resources, the category still hasn't expanded over the years. The universe of TV news viewers is not really expanding; its not even 10 per cent. The challenge is to get a larger number of viewers to associate with the universe. People who've not been watching news so far get them into the purview and the second challenge is to make them watch news for longer durations of time. As of now, the amount of time that people spend on news is miniscule.

This cannot just happen with little subtle changes in terms of some little footage and presentation. But news has to become conceptually and fundamentally different; something that is not yet happening.

On most channels news continues to suffer from the legacy of DD and has a straight-jacketed single approach. Also, we still have a lot of political Delhi-centric news and there's hardly any variation. If you look across all channels, most of the headlines are the same, be it about the government, cricket or business. Viewers are becoming more discerning and demanding and are beginning to question - 'Why am I being told something that doesn't matter to me?' Also, one has to remember that people have a choice now since they have regional as well as national channels.

The time has come when you'll have to start sensing what the viewer wants. News editors can't just be sitting in their ivory towers and deciding what people want. People have choice. The TV viewer is far more demanding and he has the option of the remote. People are now tuning in to more of customized news bulletins.

Content Philosophy and Offerings

At Star News we are very conscious of these limitations. For us anyone who is interested in the world around him or her is a potential viewer. TV news can garner a larger number of people than all the print publications put together; because of it being a very people friendly medium. Also, people can catch up on TV news even while they continue doing sundry things like cooking, talking on the phone etc.

Efforts at Universe expansion

Saas Bahu Aur Saazish - Kyunki Har Serial Kuch Kehta Ha

People are increasingly tuning in to what we call `customized news bulletins. Targeted at the women TG, the programme has been built around entertainment and soapy news. The thought behind it being that on the entertainment channels it has such a huge following so why not cater to it? A daily dose of Bollywood news and news from the tellyworld. Looking at the overall data, there has been a 98 per cent growth in the 2:30 pm time band and the growth in the women TG has been 200 per cent. So, who said women don't watch news. It's just that women will watch a different kind of news.

Poll Kholl is a political news bulletin but treated in a different way and targeted at a different audience. The show has worked very well over the weekends; as we are looking at people who are contemptuous of politics and cannot put up with all the lies and double speak in politics. It's the young, urban middle class who is conscious of the double talk and duplicity of politics and want to look at events with a critical eye. Since it's a satire, we could take a little bit of liberty and can echo all the sentiments and questions that arise in people's minds when they watch big personalities in action. It's perfectly in line with our policy of asking tough questions on behalf of the people

Match ke Mujrim - Cricket is a passion in this country and the format gives an opportunity to come and participate in the show. So, be it women, children or old people; every time somebody spoils the match, people want to talk about it. So, it's a mirror and catharsis for the popular sentiment.

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