India TV launch in January

It's official. Television producer and anchor Rajat Sharma has finally announced the launch of a 24-hour Hindi news channel company to his team.

In letters written to 120 team members, Sharma has stated that the new company, Independent News Services, is ready to kick off its own news channel India TV by January 2004.

The announcement comes after months of speculation on Sharma's proposed news channel and makes it the sixth player to enter the Hindi TV news segment after Zee News, Aaj Tak, Star News, NDTV India and Sahara. The company has already got permission from the information & broadcasting ministry for uplinking out of India.

According to top level sources in the company, India TV will be a Rs 100 crore project. It is reliably learnt that while 74 per cent equity in Independent Media Services is held by Sharma, the remaining 26 per cent has been offloaded in favour of "friends and well-wishers". "There is absolutely no foreign equity in the company," said a company source.

The business plans for the channel had apparently been prepared by Ernst & Young, which also helped the company locate investors. An 80,000 square feet studio, designed by an international firm, has already come up in Noida.

The news channel was planned after a survey showed that as an anchor Rajat Sharma had a high brand recall, the sources said.

The company has already booked a transponder on Panamsat 10 and is currently in the process of setting up its technical, advertising and sales and distribution teams in place. The channel will be marketed by advertising agency Euro RSCG and will compete for a slice of the Rs 300 crore TV news advertising market growing at 8 to 10 per cent a year.

The television software company currently produces a daily show Aaj Ki Baat for Star News.

which will be shifted to the new channel. India TV will also revive Aapki Adalat (originally on Zee TV) which made Rajat Sharma a household name in the north.