T.V. Today set to go public, sees growth

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The New Delhi-based company runs the Hindi language Aaj Tak channel, which
accounts for most of its revenue, and an English language news channel
called Headlines Today.
"This is an exciting time for the industry and growth is expected to be
explosive," Aroon Purie, Chairman and Managing Director of T.V. Today said
at a news conference announcing the issue. Advertising revenue for news
channels is expected to touch about five billion rupees by March 2007, from
the current 3.5 billion, company officials said. Poorie said the company
planned to launch separate channels for health, fitness, travel and
business, to offer a variety under the same distribution network. Anil
Mehra, a director of T.V. Today, said he expected the viewership base of Aaj
Tak to climb to about 35 million by 2007 from about 24 million now. The
company faces competition chiefly from New Delhi-based NDTV, Zee News from
the stable of India's biggest listed media firm Zee Telefilms Ltd, Rupert
Murdoch-owned News Corp's Star News and the Sahara group. T.V. Today is
promoted by Living Media and World Media Ltd.
Source:
http://www.reuters.com/locales/newsArticle.jsp?type=businessNews&locale=en_I
N&storyID=3999782