News Broadcasting
ESS’ deal with the Asian Football Confederation
MUMBAI: Sports broadcaster ESPN Star Sports (ESS) has reached a multi-year agreement with the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).
Asian football fans can tune in to ESS over the next three years for coverage of some of the world’s and the region’s biggest football tournaments. The AFC package includes the rights for the 2004 Asian Olympic Qualifiers and the Asian World Cup Qualifies (for the 2006 World Cup) as well as the Asian Cup 2004, the biennial Tiger Cup (2004 and 2006) and the biennial Asian Youth Under-20 Championships (2004 and 2006). The package also includes the Asian football weekly magazine show Football Asia . This wil air from April to March 2006.
In all, ESS will air 170 hours of live Asian football action on Star Sports (48-hour delayed basis in China for the World Cup and Olympic Qualifiers and Asian Cup matches). This will reach over 57 million households across Asia claims the broadcaster.
ESS’ senior VP programming & Event Management Group Manu Sawhney was quoted in a company release saying, “We already know how strong the appetite for football is in Asia. More and more, Asian football and Asian football players are coming into their own. This became evident after the 2002 World Cup in Japan and Korea and seems set to continue.
“Our goal through this calendar of Asian football programming is intended to fan the flames of passion through providing Asian fans with an avenue to see their national team compete at the highest standards in their quest to claim a berth on the world’s football stage. This series of Asian football tournaments will no doubt be a good barometer of the continually changing balance of power in Asian football.”
News Broadcasting
Times Network to air JVC Exit Poll across 5 regions on April 29
Four-hour broadcast spans states and Puducherry with data-led analysis
MUMBAI: Times Network is set to roll out what it calls one of its most expansive election programming efforts yet, culminating in the JVC Exit Poll on 29 April, with a multi-hour broadcast spanning key poll-bound regions.
The exit poll will air across Times Now and Times Now Navbharat, beginning at 5pm and 4pm respectively. Co-powered by Vedanta and Jindal Stainless, the programming aims to combine on-ground reportage with data-driven projections across West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry.
The network has deployed over 50 journalists across these regions, gathering voter sentiment and local insights in the run-up to polling. The effort builds on its ongoing election formats such as Election Yatra and Election Premier League, which have tracked campaign narratives and community-level issues.
In parallel, Times Now Navbharat has focused on constituency-level reporting in West Bengal through its Jan Gan ka Mann series, capturing voter opinions across diverse segments.
The coverage has also featured interviews with prominent political leaders. Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Congress leaders Ramesh Chennithala and V D Satheesan have appeared on the network’s election specials. From Tamil Nadu, voices including deputy chief minister Udhayanidhi Stalin, DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran, BJP leader K Annamalai and NTK’s Seeman have also featured in discussions.
On the day of the exit poll, the network’s primetime anchors, including Navika Kumar, Zakka Jacob and Sumit Awasthi, will lead the coverage. They will be joined by a panel of political analysts, psephologists and senior journalists offering real-time insights and interpretation of trends.
The programming will integrate grassroots reportage with analytics from the JVC Exit Poll, aiming to give viewers an early sense of electoral outcomes ahead of the official results on 4 May.
With its combined English and Hindi broadcast reach, Times Network is positioning this effort as a comprehensive look at voter sentiment, blending field reporting, data and debate to decode what could lie ahead when the final mandate is revealed.
