NEW DELHI: Just two days after TV Today Network CMD Aroon Purie told indiantelevision.com that the organization was zeroing down on a replacement for Uday Shankar as news director, comes the news that the coveted post has gone to KW Naqvi, a former Aaj Tak man.

According to information available with indiantelevision.com, Naqvi took over today as the news director at TV Today and attended organizational meetings earlier in the day.

A formal comment from TV Today Network, the parent company of the Aaj Tak and Headlines Today news channels, could not be elicited immediately.

Naqvi takes the hot seat at TV Today at a time when the company is witnessing a massive exodus of trained and experienced personnel across almost all departments. The hardest hit by the poaching unleashed by the competition, including an aggressive Doordarshan News, is the editorial department.

This would be Naqvi's second innings with TV Today as he was the executive editor during the days when Aaj Tak was not a channel but just a news and current affairs programme on DD Metro in the 1990s. Then the show used to be hosted by ace Hindi journalist SP Singh, who passed away some years back. Subsequently, Aaj Tak tried with Rahul Dev (making occasional appearances on DD News) and Sanjay Pugalia (at present with Star News) as hosts, but the two did not turn out to be as popular as Singh.

Ideally, Naqvi's association with Aaj Tak, like that of Alka Saxena, Ajay Chowdhry and M Jha, should have continued when Purie launched a full-fledged channel of the same name, but it was not to be.

Now, Naqvi makes a return to TV Today and Aaj Tak and would have to carry out the difficult task of not only keeping the momentum going, but also attempt to arrest the desertions from the company.