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Open
bidding likely for the slot vacated by Aaj Tak
Aaj
Tak after completing more than five years of uninterrupted
run, is finally saying goodbye to DD on December 31. Doordarshan
officials insist that there are no immediate plans to replace
Aaj Tak on Doordarshan’s Metro Channel with another news
and current affairs programme. When quizzed about the rumour
that DD was planning to sell the slot to ANI (a TV News Agency),
Deepak Sandhu, head of DD News, informed Screen that there
there was no such plan. "The slot, most probably, will
go to any entertainment programme," he said. The slots
to be vacated by Aaj Tak will in all possibility go to an
entertainment-based programme that will earn DD good revenue
now that Nine Gold has established the time band between 7
p.m. and 10 p.m.
While James Packer, of Nine Gold, had informed Screen a few
weeks ago that Kerry Packer’s company was not interested
in taking over more slots on DD, Rajiv Shukla’s BAG Films
seems keen on filling the Aaj Tak slot. BAG Films already
has several news based programmes on DD including the daily
Rozana that is telecast on the DD News Channel.Sources in
DD say that DD has appointed BAG Films as the sole agency
to supply news to DD from four cities including Raipur and
Shimla.
Nimbus, another contender for the Aaj Tak slot, has a deal
with DD to start a daily four-hour business programming on
DD News Channel.
A senior official of DD told Screen that Prasar Bharti is
expected to go for open bidding to select the programme to
be telecast on the vacated slot.
Meanwhile TV Today is expected to launch its own channel Aaj
Tak in January 2001. TV Today wanted Aaj Tak to continue on
DD-2. Since DD does not seem to have any objections to UTV,
Channel Nine, SABe TV, Discovery & B4U plans to have its
programming on DD simultaneously, TV Today was hopeful that
DD would give Aaj Tak on extension. It had a contract to run
till March 31, 2001, but according to our sources, DD officials
did not want a clash between Aaj Tak on DD-2 and TV Today’s
new channel, Aaj Tak which is why the programme is being yanked
off the air before its time is up. Sources say Aaj Tak might
have stayed on had TV Today launched its channel under another
name.
Amitabh Parashar
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