IVR's Mahaa News Channel

Yes, it is another news channel in the already crowded Telugu News Channel market.It is MAHAA TV of Mr. I.Venkata Rao. ETV2, TV9, Gemini News, NTV , TV5 are operational and work is going on in Sakshi , HMTV, iNews, Asianet Telugu, Zee 24 Gantalu while Andhra Jyothi's TV (name yet to be known) , IVR's mahaa TV and Sivaram Prasad's Studio N are ready for recruiting hands.The total number of telugu news channels thus become 13.

 

Today's advertisement in Andhra Jyothi said that MAHAA TV is Mr. I.Venkata Rao's own channel. Since his books are also published by "Monika"  and the network is also named after Monika, people are made to believe that Mr. IVR is the chief promoter of the channel, though it is rumoured that Mr. Nama Nageswara Rao is behind this venture. There is another news doing its round saying that a retired police officer is the chief promoter. The launch is expected in February ( Mr. IVR is hopeful of launching in January itself ) but it will be herculian task considering the experience of Mr. Ramachandra Murthy who has been struggling hard to bring out hmtv for the past one year.

 

Mr. Katta Shekhar Reddy will be the second in command and the key persons in the team have already been selected. It is also known that Mr. Vinay is the Chief Producer for this channel. Mr. Rama Rao ( Formerly with Andhra Jyothi at Guntur ) will be the Input Editor, Mr. Narayana ( ETV) will be the Hyderabad Bureau Chief and Mr. Keshav (ETV ) will be the Output Editor. Some more ETV staff members have been finalised but the names are yet to be known.

 

Interestingly, Mr. Sivaram Prasad of Narne Group is also planning to launch his channel in January. He has already ordered for the equipment and the installation is likely to be completed by the end of November. The recruitment will be from 1st December, by which time everything will be in nplace and those who join can start working immediately. His experience helped a lot and the planning is likely to prove that he can bring out his channel in January without burdening the promoters heavily with the unproductive pre launch expenses. ( Sakshi and HMTV are now spending huge sums on salaries without any tangible productive work.)

 

As for the other news channels waiting for the launch, Sakshi HDTV,  Zee 24 Gantalu, Asianet Telugu News are  likely to be aired in January taking into consideration the pace of work going on.  iNews and hmtv are planning for November launch, but insiders say that only test signal is possible since the content trials are still in a preliminary stage. Heads of these two channels are under pressure since the launch is getting delayed.