News Broadcasting
Tarrant on TV hails Mudra’s anti smoking commercial
MUMBAI: Mudra Communications has won critical acclaim for its anti-smoking commercial Godfather.
London’s popular show Tarrant On TV has decided to telecast the commercial, ‘as it is a very good example of the power of advertising to highlight serious issues’. Tarrant on TV from the ITV Network in the UK celebrates the best of humorous commercials from around the world.
An official release says that the creative brains behind the commercial are the two Creative Directors of Mudra, Mumbai, Anup Chitnis and Rensil D’Silva who have previously worked on Channel [V]’s ‘Gheun Taak’.
Godfather centres around a hit man who enters a restaurant to kill a mafia don called Frankie The Fist. Frankie who has an unlit cigarette in his mouth, refuses to die no matter how many times he is shot. The point of the commercial is that by not lighting up a cigarette, a person can add valuable minutes to his or her life.
This is the first of a two-commercial campaign, says the release. The second spot is a Bollywood take-off featuring look-alikes of Rajesh Khanna and Shetty the villain, both of whom are in the middle of a fight. Rajesh decides that a cigarette would be more useful than a gun in killing Shetty.
Both these spots are Mudra’s in-house productions – written, directed and produced for Mudra by Anup and Rensil. The production design has been handled by UTV. The spots ran on music channel MTV as part of a public service campaign duringApril and May .
Tarrant on TV conducted by popular TV and radio host Chris Tarrant, celebrates the style and wit of advertising and looks at trends and idiosyncrasies of worldwide television. This is the programme’s 17th year on British TV.
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.
