Kannada news channel Public TV to launch on Jan 26

Karnataka will soon have a 24-hour Kannada news channel with a journalist at the helm of affairs. The launch of the channel, named Public TV, is tentatively scheduled for January 26. It has been promoted by Writemen Media Pvt Ltd, an independent company floated to start this venture. The Chairman and Managing Editor of the organization is veteran journalist H R Ranganath, who comes with an experience of 24 years in the media, with close to 17-19 years in the print industry. Arun Kumar holds the post of CEO and S Divaakar is the Vice President, Sales and Marketing.

Commenting on the thought behind deciding on the name for the channel, H R Ranganath, Chairman and Managing Editor, Writeman Media, remarked, “We embarked on this project keeping the common citizen in mind. The name ‘Writemen Media’ itself speaks about an inspired project of journalistic thinking. We have brought in a system of transparency to maintain the standards of journalism and increase our credibility by being responsible to the public.”

The common perception in the industry is that floating a regional channel requires a capex of approximately Rs 45-50 crores. At times, this figure is even inflated to fall in the range of Rs 100-150 crore. Public TV’s capex comes up to less than 25% of this amount. The spends towards promotions and brand building activities for the channel through traditional and non-traditional routes falls in the range of around 20-25% of the capex for the project.