CNN-IBN hopes to breakeven by March '07

News broadcaster looks to become 'pay channel' soon.

Launched in December last year, CNN-IBN is expecting to breakeven by the end of this financial year.

The channel, which is currently undertaking a massive rebranding and relaunch of its recently acquired Hindi news channel Channel 7, is also looking to become a 'pay channel' from a 'free-to-air' channel soon.

"Our quarter-on-quarter growth is almost 100 per cent. Although it is on a small base, our performance in the last five months has been exceptional. We are already beamed in 80 per cent of the 62 million cable and satellite homes around the country. We are likely to break even by the end of this fiscal," Sameer Manchanda, joint managing director, CNN-IBN, said.

The news channel is currently not available on any direct-to-home (DTH) platform but is in active negotiations with both the Zee group's Dish TV and Tata-Star's upcoming DTH venture, Manchanda added.

CNN-IBN is currently a free-to-air channel, unlike the other two channels in the bouquet "� CNBC TV18 and 'Awaaz'. Although company executives are quiet on the issue, an industry source said the offering was set to turn CNN-IBN into a pay channel in a few months.

On his plans to launch or acquire new channels, Manchanda said, "We have enough on our platter for now. First, we have to make a success story of Channel 7; other growth options will come later."

While the market for the English news genre is roughly Rs 300 crore, for the Hindi category it is about Rs 500 crore.

Again, while the share of CNN IBN is 22 per cent "� second to NDTV 24X7 which commands 24 per cent, that of its 24 hour Hindi news channel Channel 7 is merely 8 per cent (as per TAM figures for the week ended May 20). The market leader Aaj Tak has a robust 25 per cent share.

CNN-IBN had acquired the channel from the Jagran group's stable in February and was to be rechristened 'IBN 7', an exercise that has fallen by the wayside now. The acquisition and the relaunch exercise will together cost Rs 60 crore to the news broadcaster.

"There will be a new logo, new programming focus and style of news packaging for Channel 7 starting from June 1. We have set a 100-day task for ourselves to make it a default channel for viewers. We would like to break down this wall between the English and the Hindi news genres by synergising the robustness of the Hindi genre with the sophistication of the English genre," said Rajdeep Sardesai, editor-in-chief, CNN-IBN.

On shelving the renaming decision, Sardesai said, "It was a strategic decision as we realised that the brand 'Channel 7' had some brand potential and it was merely a thing of increasing mindspace in the audiences." There were no regulatory hassles as we never went with the application to change the name, he added.