Prabhu Chawla's ‘Sachchi Baat’ on ETV

Prabhu Chawla, Editorial Director, The New Indian Express, is all set to host a new talk show, ‘Sachchi Baat’, on ETV from January 15, 2011. Chawla has signed a deal with the channel for two years. Apart from the Hindi channel ETV, the show would also be aired on the ETV’s Gujarati and Urdu channels.

Chawla was earlier hosting the talk show ‘Seedhi Baat’ on Aaj Tak. Following his departure from the India Today Group, and hence from the show, the industry has been expecting Chawla to host a new TV show on similar lines as ‘Seedhi Baat’.

Speaking  on the new show, Chawla said, “The objective of ‘Sachchi Baat’ is to grill the high and mighty from all sectors and factions, whose decisions influence the lives of people.”

‘Sachchi Baat’ is planned as a half-hour show. It is scheduled for Sundays at from 8.00 pm to 8.30 pm. The time slot competes directly with ‘Seedhi Baat’, which is now hosted by MJ Akbar on Aaj Tak. ‘Sachchi Baat’ will also have repeat telecasts on ETV on Mondays at 7.00 pm and Saturdays at 9.00 pm. ETV Bangla and ETV Telugu will also air the show in Hindi language soon.

Sakal Pune loses colour for a day

Marathi daily Sakal is set to go all-colour in Pune from January 5, 2011 onwards. To create the curiosity among its readers, the newspaper came out entirely in monochromes on January 4, 2010. The B&W edition of the newspaper included all the supplements and the advertisements. A sky bus in the main issue requested readers to preserve the black and white copy as a memorabilia of Sakal Pune, turning a new page in its history. The campaign was created by Pune-based agency Setu Advertising.

Commenting on the initiative, Indranil Datta, Marketing Head, Sakal Media Group, said, “Sakal as a brand enjoys a strong emotional connect with its readers, which dates back to the last 79 years. So, every change in the product will be critically evaluated by its loyal readers of Pune. Therefore, we needed a communication that broke through the clutter from an ordinary message of any another newspaper in this part of the country. Launching in all-colour is something spectacular. So, the black and white issue on January 4, 2011, not only created a disruption, but also made the message memorable in the minds of readers.”

Indian M&E industry going forward

After a year of economic uncertainty in 2009, the Indian Media and Entertainment (M&E) industry returned to steady growth in 2010. With the pace of growth only set to gather speed, competition is likely to be the theme for 2011, and the ‘new normal’ for the Indian M&E industry going forward.

Competition in the Indian M&E industry is being shaped by four macro-economic factors – market variation, market volatility, margin pressure, and stakeholder confidence – which, while not new, are now increasingly important for today’s executives to address. Variation across demographics and the price sensitivity of consumer groups within the Indian market are challenging the go-to-market assumptions of even the most established M&E companies.