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Time is now!

Times Now CEO Sunil Lulla elaborates on the channel's urban feel

LOOKING FOR A PUNCH Sunil Lulla, CEO, Times Now

The hoardings are suggestive of both excitement and disgust. They ask, `When was the last time you ever feel like doing this while watching a news channel?' and show a hand squeezing out a can of soft drinks, spilling it in the course, something that you might do in high spirits or in utter repulsion.

But Times Now, stresses its Chief Executive Officer, Sunil Lulla, is something that is radically different from the other English news channels. "The idea is to create a second generation of television news in the Indian broadcast space," he says. News is after all, an experience, he states, and Times Now will make India `feel the news'.

And by India, Lulla means the Shining India crowd, the upmarket urbanites.

"We are focussed on the Indian urbanite's need for urgent news. We stay clear of regional news," he maintains. Not that regional news will be spiked at the channel's editing board despite having a breaking news content, he highlights, by adding, "We will take our call on it."

But why target such a miniscule number of viewers considering that the need for news is universal and we are a country with a huge population. "You need to realise that we have a sizeable urban population by now. There is a rise in people's income, people have a growing awareness about gathering information. We want to address that particular section," states Lulla. True to his words, the channel's sets have an urbane feel though its bunch of greenhorn anchors would need time to handle news surely.

But with editorial support from an established name in international news like Reuters, and one of the well-known faces of NDTV 24/7, Arnab Goswami as its editor-in-chief, it hopes to take an important position in two to three years time in the dissemination of news to Urban Indians in current affairs, business, policy, politics, urban trends, lifestyle and the world.

"We connect each story to the bigger picture and will continue to do so. We try to give a 360 degree view of every development," Lulla claims, suggesting viewers to check out its weekend programming particularly. But to quote TAM ratings at this point in time, it is steadily at the tail end of domestic English news channels since its opening in January this year.

Poor visibility

Though the channel chief is talking about promotional activities across the cities, its visibility, even in various parts of Delhi, is quite poor so far. Or, is it because it wants to tell us that our area is not quite upmarket for them to come in, folks?

SANGEETA BAROOAH PISHAROTY

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