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ETC promoters
Jagjit Kohli, Yogesh Radhakrishna and Yogesh Shah have shelved their
grandiose plans of launching a Hindi news channel, after the entry
of Aaj Tak. Ruperistaan, the company which was floated to set up
the news channel, has closed down. The news bureaus in 18 centres
spread across the country have shut operations. The company had
recruited around 100 people. "Ruperistaan has been shut down.
We were unable to get funds on time. With competition getting hot
and ad rates falling, we have to cut down on costs. This is the
first step in that direction," said Mr Shah.
Mr Raghunandan
Dhar, who was the CEO of Ruperistaan added, "The promoters
felt they should not roll out a news channel as there was no space
after the launch of Aaj Tak from the India Today stable. We are
waiting for our dues to be cleared."
ETC music channel,
which was getting news content from Ruperistaan, has decided to
pull out the half-hour current affairs slot at 10:00-10:30 p.m.
with effect from July 1. With this, Ruperistaan has no work to do.
Doordarshan Marathi had earlier this January decided to end the
news supply arrangement with Ruperistaan. "It was a bad decision
to run news on our music channel. We found it commercially unviable.
It wasn’t giving us the expected ratings or revenues. Besides,
we felt news was not the right mix for us. We would have been on
a better wicket if we hadn’t taken that decision," said
Mr Shah.
ETC was initially
producing the news but the promoters decided on November 1, 2000,
to spin it off into a separate entity. Ruperistaan was floated and
the plan was to launch a news channel.
The promoters, however, were unable to get finance for the project.
ETC decided to experiment with news on the music channel as it felt
it would get in a more diverse audience.
The idea was
to expand beyond the half-hour night news to two 15-minute capsules
in the afternoon. The plan was to also introduce a half-hour news
at 8:00-8:30 in the morning.
"Ruperistaan
would have started with supply of news to ETC and Doordarshan Marathi.
With finance ready, it would have launched a full-fledged news channel,"
said Mr Shah. The first blow came when DD Marathi ended its contract
for news supply on January 15, 2001. Ruperistaan was providing half-hour
of news to DD’s regional channel for five days a week.
The slot was
given by DD on a revenue-sharing basis.
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