TV Southasia is all set to be aired from April 15 in Kolkata. A host of new Bengali channels, like Star Bangla, ETV News, Voice of India (formerly Bangla Ekhon) and Xenitis group’s Channel X, are also gearing up for their launch.
According to Rathikant Basu, chairman of Broadcast Worldwide, the banner of TARA channels (news and muzik), the contents of the channel is a compiled contributions from AAJ TV, Business Recorder Group of Pakistan, Nepal’s Image Channels, MTV Private Ltd of Sri Lanka’s Maharaja Group and Broadcast World Wide of India. Channel I from Bangladesh is also associated with the project.
TV Southasia will have four slots of 50-minute each for news & current affairs, which will air only 10 minutes footage for each country. So, India’s allotment is also for 10 minutes only.
Although industry sources say TARA News will go off the air soon after TV Southasia is launched, executive editor of this new channel, Rubana Haq, said both the TARA channels are separate from TV Southasia.
“There will be no news on the channel. We believe there are multiple healers and bridges that can connect us, apart from the political scene. But yes, we shall have occasional business reports,” Haq added.
Southasia launched its first initiative in the form of a weekly TV programme on the eve of the SAARC summit in 2007. This 30-minute, magazine format show in English carried news, special features, reports on cultural and entertainment events, profiles of and interviews with celebrities from South Asia.
“Yes, the programme Southasian and the Music Southasia were pilot projects that paved the way for the collaboration,” Haq said. “Its programme slots will be rotational and the content from individual countries will be unedited.”