Shashidhar Bhat joins samaya TV as chief Editor

Changes in Kannada journalism As well. After most contravecial and talented Editor Vishsweshwar Bhat shown door by times group management one more changes reported. That’s Shashidhar Bhat, with mouthful of paan, again on the small screen anchoring talk in Samay News channel.

Though, Shashidhar Bhat is an old horse and spent force, his come back welcomed by most except his old colleagues. Shashidhar Bhat, got first G category site from Govt among journalists, is comparatively better than V.Bhat and harmless to society.

Read this blog post in kannada.

ಕಳೆದ ವಾರ ವಿಜಯಕರ್ನಾಟಕದ ಸಂಪಾದಕರಾಗಿದ್ದ ವಿಶ್ವೇಶಭಟ್ಟರು ರಾಜೀನಾಮೆ ಕೊಟ್ಟಾಗ ನನ್ನ ಗೆಳತಿಯೊಬ್ಬಳು ಪ್ರತಿಕ್ರಿಯಿಸಿದ್ದು ಹೀಗೆ; ಇದು ಪತ್ರಿಕೋದ್ಯಮದ ನೈತಿಕತೆಗೆ ಸಿಕ್ಕಿದ ಜಯ.
http://uknishada.blogspot.com/2010/12/blog-post.html

Prabhu Chawla joins Indian Express

Stalwart in the field of journalism Prabhu Chawla has put in his papers at the India Today Group. With this, Mr. Chawla has finally put a big full stop to all the speculations about his detachment with India Today. Prabhu Chawla is now said to have joined the Indian Express Group, however, his designation there is still not revealed.

Till yet, rumors of regarding process of putting his candidature on the back burner in the group were hovering in the air, as the management started to neglect him after the association of senior journalist M.J. Akbar with the company.

India Today Group had appointed MJ Akbar as Editorial Director of India Today - English and India Today - International and their extensions. Chawla was then given the charge of Editor (Languages) and CEO. Before holding this post, he had worked as Editorial Director of the magazine India Today for 14 years.

Chawla had started his journalistic career with India Today and had then joined The Indian Express. He then rejoined India Today, first as Editor of the Hindi edition, and then the English edition too.

MJ Akbar Replaces Prabhu Chawla As Host Of Seedhi Baat ‎

M.J. Akbar Replaces Prabhu Chawla As Host Of Seedhi Baat  Brings Mani Shankar Aiyer as the first guest on the talk show.  Rajat Arora | Delhi | December 24, 2010  Aaj Tak has finally found a new host for its flagship talk show Seedhi Baat. The speculations were on rife about the future of the talk show after the departure of Prabhu Chawla from the India Today Group last week.  The new Editorial Director of India Today Group M.J. Akbar is all set to don a new hat of a host of Hindi talk show Seedhi Baat. M.J. Akbar is recording his first episode of Hindi talk show Seedhi Baat today with senior Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyer.  Seedhi Baat is known for its fearless and grilling approach and the outgoing host Prabhu Chawla was awarded as the best talk show host for Seedhi Baat by Indian Television Academy.  In September, India Today Group was restructured when M.J. Akbar joined as Editorial Director and Prabhu Chawla was eased out and was made Editor, Language. Last week Prabhu Chawla parted ways with India Today group and joined The New Indian Express as Editor.

Movers and shakers

Recent changes in Bangalore

1. New Indian Express Business correspondent  P. Jayadevan is joining *Economic Times*

2. Pranav Nambiar who was with DNA earlier, has joined Times of  India

 3. Chief reporter of  Kasturi TV channel, Anand has resigned
4. Pragyan Acharya has  joined as *Dataquest* Correspondent in *Cybermedia* *Bangalore Bureau*

 5. Malini N  joined Voice & Data in  Bangalore

6. Nikhil Sivadas has joined *ET Now Bangalore as Business  Correspondent.
7. Vinu Lal has joined Economic Times, Bangalore as Assistant Editor
8. Sudipto Mondal, The Hindu from Mangalore transfred to Bangalore.
9. M.Raghava of The Hindu has transfered from Bangalore to Mangalore

Maria Garcia on Kerala

TAKEAWAY: This is an industry that needs good, encouraging news, right?  Well, take a detour to Kerala, in the scenic cone of southern India, a sort of Land of Oz for newspaper readers.

Recent front page of Malayala Manorama

It has been an intense two days here at Malayala Manorama, the newspaper that is read by approximately 10 million readers daily. Yes, it takes your breath away just to mention that number in connection with a printed newspaper—-or in any platform for that matter.

My visit here this time has nothing to do with print.  We at Garcia Media did a full redesign of Malayala Manorama (in Malayalan) and its sister weekly magazineThe Week (in English) in 2004.

Figures just released today, tell us the happy story: Malayala Manorama retains the number 1 position among regional language dailies in India with 99.27 lacs readers (approximately 10 million). With this reanking, Malayala Manorama becomes the 4th largest read newspaper in the country, and the only non-Hindi publication in the top 5 list.

The honor of being number one, the most widely read newspaper in India is Dainik Jagran (Hindi) with close to 16 million readers, followed by Dainik Bhaskar(Hindi), 14 million; Hindustan——a current Garcia Media project—-with almost 11 million.  The Times of India (English) is #7 on the list and the most widely read English language daily, with over 7 million daily readers.

By the way, another one of our Indian regional newspaper projects, Sakshi (in Telugu), published in Hyderabad, and which we created as a newspaper in March 2008, ranks #15 on the list with close to 5 million daily readers.

Indian readers take their newspapers seriously, and although the use of mobile telephones is widespread, they are used for conversation more than to read newspapers in them, obviously.  As I have travelled through the rural stretch that connects the city of Cochin with Kottayam in scenic Kerala, I was impressed by the number of men and women sitting outdoors, or on the floor, with a newspaper open in front of them.

Are you listening, Ross Dawson?

Dawson, as readers of this blog may know, is the author of a much discussedNewspaper Extinction Deadline.  In it, India truly got the honors of being the last country to say goodbye to printed newspapers as we know them.

According to Dawson, it will be India that will pull the plug, sell the old printing presses, turn off the light and hang a sign that reads: Gone apping! Dawson’s website is about “opportunities for business and society in a hyper-connected world.

I am surprised that so many Indian publishers had no idea they were so honored.  Twice this month, while conducting sessions, I have joked that I expect to be working in India till the very end of my career. Heck, I will be 93 in 2040 if I make it that far.  But I don’t think I, or anyone, will be helping the Indians to hang that sign outside the door.  However, I see surprise in the Indians’ faces when I tell them they have been given the honor of being the last country to still have printed newspapers.

“Nonsense,“ a publisher told me here. “Pure nonsense, this prediction.“  (I have heard the same reaction from others outside of India)

Not even an hour after this discussion came the report with those incredible, but true, numbers about Indian newspaper readership:  15 million readers here and 10 million there.  The newspaper that was #33 on the list , Punya Nagari (in Marathi) even gets two million readers.

“We at Malayala Manorama see various platforms, and we are going to be represented in all of them,“ says Mammen Mathew, Editor. And, of course, Mr. Mathew made this statement as he joined us in the kick off of theMalayala Manorama iPad app workshop.

Six years after my first visit here to redesign Malayala Manorama, my visit this time is to help Malayala Manorama as it looks to the future in a new platform—-the tablet.

Joshi joined DNA as Resident Editor, Bangalore

Ravi Joshi has joined DNA Bangalore as its Resident Editor. Joshi moves from The New Indian Express where he was the Deputy Resident Editor based in Bangalore. He moves in place of Vinay Kamat, who was the Resident Editor of DNA Bangalore and who now has moved to The Times of India.

Confirming the development, Joshi said, “DNA is a huge brand and we want to leverage this strength in both diversifying our presence and making the brand much stronger. It is a huge growth plan that we are looking at.”

Though Joshi did not divulge details, he informed that the plans ahead included changes both in terms of content and presence of the newspaper from DNA in Bangalore.

Joshi started his career with The Times of India in Delhi and then moved to Hindustan Times doing also a stint at India Today in Delhi. He has spent three years in The New Indian Express where he was first in Chennai and later moved to Bangalore to look after the Karnataka market.

Jagannathan quits DNA; Aditya Sinha to join as new Editor-in-Chief

R Jagannathan has put in his papers at DNA. Jagannathan was in charge of the entire paper as the Managing Editor since June 2007. According to sources, Aditya Sinha from The New Indian Express is likely to join DNA as its Editor-in-Chief.

Prior to his stint as Managing Editor, Jagannathan was Editor, DNA Money, and was thereafter elevated from that post.
He is rumoured to be joining the Network18 Group. Jagannathan was earlier associated with the Business Standard group and has also been the Editor of Indian Management, a magazine by Business Standard. His earlier stints include Editor of Businessworld; Editor of The Financial Express, and the founding Executive Editor of Business Today.

Vishweshwar Bhat moves out

Vishweshwar Bhat, the popular yet controversial editor of Vijaya Karnataka, the mass-circulation Kannada daily owned by The Times of India group, has resigned. 

Bhat’s decision was announced to his staff this afternoon after a meeting with ToI chief executive officer Ravi Dhariwal and chief marketing officer Rahul Kansal who had flown down to Bangalore.

Bhat confirmed the resignation to churumuri.com, adding that, although he had no negative feelings for the company, he had begun to feel “slightly uncomfortable” in the last few months.

“I decided to quit when things were all right,” he said.

There is no word how long his name will appear on the imprintline or who his replacement is likely to be, although there is a rumour that E. Raghavan, who retired as editor of the Economic Times editions in the south and currently edits the Kannada weekend broadsheet Vijaya Next, may fill the breach.

The charitable version for the exit is that Bhat, who took over the reins of the paper 10 years ago, wanted a three-year sabbatical to go abroad and study which the Jains, who picked up the paper from Vijay Sankeshwar of the logistics company VRL four years ago, were disclined to give.

Bhat says he intends to pursue higher education now that he has been freed of his commitments, although the buzz is he may join a soon-to-be-started Kannada news channel. The no-compete clause in Sankeshwar’s deal with Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd also ends next year opening up new possibilities on the Kannada media map.

However, the press club gossip is less than charitable. This version has it that Bhat had reached the end of the long rope that had been extended him, during which period the paper veered overtly to the right, attracting the ire of Muslims, Dalits and Christians.

In a petition earlier this year, when Bhat was nominated for an honorary doctorate, the Karnataka chapter of Transparency International dashed off a petition, accusing the editor of being “primarily responsible for instigating and fuelling communal hatred by regularly publishing extremely volatile and offensive articles and editorials.”

Recent surveys also showed that Vijaya Karnataka‘s readership and circulation were moving southwards, to the discomfiture of the bosses, necessitating the change of guard.

All things considered, to Bhat goes the credit of turning a fledgling daily into a market leader and opinion maker, overtaking the 60-year-oldPraja Vani from the Deccan Herald group in next to no time with a series of innovations and reader-friendly initiatives.
(churumuri.com)

M.J. Akbar To Join India Today

Veteran journalist, columnist and author M. J. Akbar is joining India’s No.1 magazine India Today as Editorial Director of India Today (English and International). He will also be the Editorial Director of group’s English news channel Headlines Today.

Highly placed sources in the industry have confirmed the development with BestMediaInfo.com.

When contacted, Aroon Purie, Editor in Chief of India Today Group said that he could not comment on the news as he has not made any announcement as yet but at the same time he did not deny on the appointment of M. J. Akbar.

M. J. Akbar too said in a sms reply to BestMediaInfo.com, “What Mr. Purie has said is right.” Although, he did not comment on the development, BestMediaInfo.com did not get any denial from him.

Prabhu Chawla will head Chennai based Indian Express

Prabhu Chawla Joins The New Indian Express As Editor-in-chief

Prabhu Chawla, Editor (Languages), India Today Group has moved on and joining the Chennai based daily “The New Indian Express” as Editor-in-chief from tomorrow. He will be based out of Delhi.

When contacted, Prabhu denied commenting on the development but the senior level sources have confirmed that he is joining The New Indian Express from tomorrow.

He is replacing the Editor-in-chief Aditya Sinha who is slated to join DNA as Editor-in-chief next month.

Prabhu has been a long term associate with India Today Group and before the recent restructuring he was Group Editor, India Today Group. India Today Group had replaced Prabhu with MJ Akbar as Editorial Director.

The New Indian Express is published from 21 centres in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Orissa. It also publishes the Tamil daily Dinamani, Cinema Express (Tamil), Malayalam Vaarika (Malayalam) and Tamilan Express (Tamil). Through a sister company, Kannada Prabha Publications Ltd., it publishes the Kannada daily Kannada Prabha.