It's raining jobs in TV

Even as the government decides the fate of 70 new television channels, a huge employee churn has started taking place in news broadcasters.

TV Today's Hindi news channel, Aaj Tak, has lost nearly 30 key people to other television news ventures in the last couple of months. People from the company's technical and human resource (HR) departments as well as editorial and graphics departments have quit and joined Hindi news channels to be launched by Anurradha Prasad's BAG Films and Triveni Infrastructure Development Company, a real estate and construction company.

According to the television news industry veterans, this is just the beginning of the churn. Several Hindi and English news channels are waiting in the wings to enter the Rs 700-crore news TV market. In a hurry to start before the others, most of these have started poaching on existing channels.

Though the number of resignations at Star News has been limited, the situation is likely to change. "We expect churn in the coming months. People were probably waiting for their increment letters," says a senior executive at MCCS, the ABP Ltd and Star India joint venture.

Expect major action in the business news channel space as well with UTV and INX planning to enter this segment. Though a UTV source says that bulk of the staffing for the company's channel will happen later, it has already poached its top managers from Times NOW and TV Today.

Says TV Today Executive Director G Krishnan: "It is true that a number of people have left Aaj Tak in the recent past. We have lost our staff to new set-ups. There is a paucity of trained talent in the industry and hence the company that has the best people automatically stands to lose the most."

People are jumping for 50 per cent to 60 per cent salary hikes this time with E-SOPs thrown in for the top level. Since it is an outsider in the media space, Triveni Infrastructure has had to fork out massive signing amounts for its top team.

Clearly, for now, Aaj Tak has been the worst hit. But do HR policies affect attrition rates? Says Krishnan: "HR policies do play a part in attrition. But here high attrition is due to the churn in the media industry itself."

However, TV industry experts say that over the years news channels have learnt to live with trainees hired from hundreds of media schools across the country. "Today most channels begin operations with a 60:40 per cent ratio of trainees to experienced staff," says the UTV source.

Since non-poaching agreements seem impractical to implement in an industry where the talent pool is limited, "the focus should be on reducing the gap between demand and supply," says Krishnan.