Broadbandindia Magazine

Times Global Broadcasting Co Ltd (TGBCL) launched their English business news channel ET Now on 22nd June with the promotional tagline “unmute business news.”

Unparalleled edge

It’s a unique experiment in media convergence: this is perhaps the first time in the world that a television channel’s newsroom and operations are being so closely integrated with those of its sister newspaper. The channels marks the entry of the flagship business newspaper, The Economic Time into the medium of television.

That gives the new channel an unparalleled edge: apart from the top television professionals at its helm, it has access to the expertise and depth of knowledge of the editorial team of India’s biggest and most respected business paper. Among ET NOW’s top editors are Andy Mukherjee, the award-winning columnist from Bloomberg, who heads the channel’s morning programming focused on the stock, currency and commodities markets. R Sridharan, who joined the channel from ‘Business Today’, looks after the evening programming, with a greater focus on news and analysis.

But to put together their respective programming bands, they each have recourse to the full strength of The Economic Times via two of ET’s most senior editors,  who are tasked with integrating the output of both newspaper and channel. Shaji Vikraman, national finance editor, heads all of ET and ET NOW’s markets, commodities, banking and economy reporting bureaus, while all the corporate bureaus across print and television report to Javed Sayed, national corporate editor.

ET’s print reporters and editors have been making regular appearances on the channel. They bring an additional dimension of analysis and comment apart from, of course, breaking stories on air. And hosting them during this integration is a team of versatile television faces: from lead anchor Siddhartha Dubey, whose stint at Reuters London has given him a global perspective on business, to Nikunj Dalmia, who’s tracked the Indian markets with a single-minded focus for a decade, to banking editor George Cherian, an alumnus of two multinational banks.

Behind the scenes support comes from a crack production and editorial team: Ward Edmonds, ET NOW’s director of production & presentation, is a business TV veteran, with experience in most markets in Asia as well as his native Australia. The channel’s chief editor, news, Muralidhar Swaminathan has decades of experience in business news, both in print as well as on television.

Both channel and paper have a common advisory board, which includes ET’s editors for its West and North editions, Bodhisatva Ganguli and T K Arun, as well as editor, opinion, M K Venu, associate editor Sugata Ghosh and ET NOW’s consulting editor Abheek Barman.

Programming

ET Now will focus on the markets during morning hours, interspersed with regular business updates and bulletins on leading business and corporate developments of the day. The channel will commence the day with Morning Mantra at 7 am to air exclusive ET stories. At 9 am there will be Pitch Report, to be followed by Opening Shots at 9.30 am hinting at the market moves. At 12.30 pm a show on personal portfolio will come in From The Stands to be followed by Closing Shots at 2 pm. Garam Masala, a show on commodities, will follow next at 4 pm.

Markets Tomorrow at 5.30 pm will review the day’s activity to crack the maket code for ‘tomorrow’. At 8 pm, ET Now will recap the day’s biggest corporate stories with Business First while ET Inc at 9 pm will get an in-depth analysis of the biggest and most important stories of the day. 10 pm, meanwhile, will be the time to look at the 10 biggest stories of the day across Indian and global business, politics, entertainment and sports with Top 10 @ 10. On weekends, the channel programming will offer a blend of features, special reports and reviews covering diverse subjects ranging from technology and automobiles to marketing and advertising.