Thursday, June 26, 2008

South India update.

Since I can profess to have little knowledge of the media scene in southern India, a friend mailed me some quick details of what is going on there. Here goes, and many thanks to this kind soul whom I will buy a drink when we meet next! This blog gets a considerable number of readers from the south and I would love it if you guys can comment on this post. I did have a sneaking feeling about the Andhra Jyoti scene, but please do comment. As you know, comments are moderated but you can comment anonymously.
...all I can tell you is that Karunanidhi is trying his best to kill Sun TV etc, but that Maran brothers are looking to launch an English language paper in tie-up with a British broadsheet by the last quarter of 2008; that Rajshekhar Reddy is trying to promote his son’s Sakshi by arresting the Andhra Jyoti editor; that The People’s Daily of Chennai is flexing distribution muscle big-time to restrict TOI to a circulation of 1.2 lakhs (TOI Chennai is printing nearly 1.7 lakh at the Dinakaran press, but have a whopping 40 per cent return of unsolds); and that DNA is getting down to the business of launching southern editions starting with Bangalore in August-September while TOI hemorrhages in Hyderabad and Chennai...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The expansion of press is good for health of our democratic institutions. Meanwhile, few people's control over press ( specially those of politicians) is killing the basics of press and making it PR institution.