Indian news media should catch up in the International space

[ejazr]

For the most part, there is no Indian news media channels that have an international presence. What I am looking at are news channels like CNN, BBC or even the newer ones like Qatar's Al Jazeera, Russia's ITN and China's CCTV. There is no comparable brand that covers news events from the Indian viewpoint.

While small wealthy countries like Qatar and our neihgbours like China and Russia have realised the importance of having a brandname news channels. We seem to be happy with the popularity of Indian movies and "Kyu ki Saas bhi Bahu thi" serials.

To start of, here is a news report, of CCTV making a presecence in the middle east and its plan to start a dedicated regional bereau and an arabic language channel in Dubai where India has always had a legup.

Isn't it time that Indian news channels start covering international events and model news channels more professionally to compete with CNN, BBC, AJE, CCTV and so on. And also cover major languages other than just English to let our point of view be heard.

There could be a spanish language channel to cover Latin America, Arabic langauge channel to cover West Asia/North Africa and so on.

China Central Television opens regional bureau in Dubai
China Central Television (CCTV) has opened a Middle East bureau in Dubai and says it is weighing the launch of a dedicated channel for the region.

The state-owned company's new facility at Dubai Media City will have 14 staff and a studio capable of transmitting live broadcasts.

CCTV's Middle East centre will oversee correspondents stationed in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, serving as a news-gathering centre for the region. The bureau will broadcast in several languages; the network has channels in Chinese, English, French, Spanish, Russian and Arabic.

Dubai Media City is operated by TECOM Investments. Mohammad Abdullah, the managing director of the media cluster at TECOM Investments, said the bureau would supply CCTV's channels with news about the region.

"At a later stage, they are planning maybe to have some kind of live broadcasting from their office here, because it is equipped to be broadcasting live from their studio," Mr Abdullah said.

Negotiations between TECOM and CCTV started six months ago, and the Chinese broadcaster chose the Business Central Towers in Dubai Media City because "they were looking specifically for the view "¦ of the city", Mr Abdullah said.

The launch of the Dubai bureau brings the total number of CCTV's overseas operations to 50, and the broadcaster says it will add 16 next year.

CCTV is available in 140 countries and is accessible by more than 1 billion viewers, 200 million of which it says are outside China. The network, which was formed in 1958, is made up of 19 channels.

In July last year, CCTV launched an Arabic-language international channel, saying at the time that it aimed to maintain stronger links with Arab nations. The channel is broadcast free-to-air via satellite across the Middle East.

Wang Tiegang, the bureau chief at CCTV Middle East, said the company was also considering launching a dedicated Middle East channel.

"We have a studio here, so maybe, in the near future, we will establish a channel here "¦ in Arabic, English and Chinese," Mr Tiegang said.

Abdullatif al Mulla, the group chief executiveof TECOM Investments, said the new channel could help foster business ties between the two nations.

"We welcome CCTV and foresee it playing a vital role in creating better awareness of our offerings to the Chinese companies that are keen to explore the Middle East market," he said.

"We consider this synergy will also serve to nurture the existing partnership between the UAE and China."

The UAE has recently seen an increase in the number of tourists from China, after the Chinese government relaxed travel laws for its citizens, with tours to the UAE permitted for the first time from September last year.

The move is expected to result in a 50 per cent to 100 per cent increase in the number of Chinese visitors to the UAE this year.

As more Chinese have started to visit the UAE, the number of local media companies looking to cater to the Chinese market has also grown. Three Chinese magazines have launched in the UAE to target this market.

 

[hit&run]

CCTV is aired on national free to view band width in New Zealand and Australia.

Just recently In Australia (NSW) DD News is broadcast every afternoon on weekdays Hindi and English. French, Chines and few other News are also aired. Last year i viewed DD News for few days. But the English accent was crap (very very strong, in Punjabi we say gharoar ke lol) and DD studios are like from Adam and eves times. One more thing i found that they do not make any sense because of very strange pauses and poor timing of expressions (sometimes no expression at all), speaking one line in two or three goes thus difficult to comprehend what they are trying to say. Same thing i have noticed in Times now live News readers (not Arnab).

 

[Daredevil]

Most of these channels (expect American channels) have strong government backing to air their viewpoint to the rest of the world. I cannot imagine a DD channel backed by our government will be able to do a good job like other channels are doing. A public-private partnership Channel can do the wonders with management completely in the hands of professionals instead of bureaucrats and with local anchors and media persons.

 

[ejazr]

DD News is certainly no where near the likes of say CCTV or the Russian ITN.

The thing is news channels have to probably seperate their International and national news network. Because you have to give news that the International audience wants to see. DD News only focuses mainly on Indian news.

On top of that it has to hire some well known faces. If AlJazeeraEnglish can hire ex BBC and CNN staff by giving them more pay, Indian news corps should be able to hire some as well.. Start some formats with weekly documentaries that focus on various parts of the worlds like France24 or BBC does. And then as viewership grows, International companies might pitch in with advertising revenues.

Its a matter of articulating a vision and trying to get there. Different formats for funding are there, you have CNN with a private owneship under TimeWarner group, BBC is government funded but with no "interference"; the more recent AlJazeera falls in the same category as well and there is CCTV which is government funded and controlled.

 

[Vyom]

Television is no longer an informative medium anyway. I can't even take up the current number of news channel all of which, more or less, suffer from the same "Saas-bhi-kabhi-bahu-thi" syndrome. These news channels are big headache. I like the way DD news is presented, and even NDTV 24X7 is good.

The first thing they need to do is to improve their presentation of the news and work on news that matters most to the general viewers, and not go on repeating the "easy news" round the clock. Work on informative and constructive news, call on debates and discussions on various issues, and even broadcast documentaries on history, science, arts business, etc.

They can't even cover all the national and regional news made in a day, how would they do justice to international news? But they can partner with foreign news agency and do the same thing with top 10 news of the day: repeat like a parrot. That would not make much sense to me, we can always get better perspectives of international news from the Internet.

 

[bharadwaj]

Hope our media becomes much more responsible before their foray into international bandwidth.

 

[The Messiah]

Its better they dont have any presence....when even here they humiliate country infront of others what will they do abroad ?