MUMBAI: Senior journalist and former main man of CNN News18, Bhupendra Chaubey is a very busy man. He is juggling the affairs of 12 editions of Telugu daily Andhra Prabha as well as running English news channel India Ahead. Since joining the national news channel as owner & co-promoter in June 2020, Chaubey has been leading its foray into the regional space.
At Indiantelevision.com’s News Television Awards 2020 Summit, co-powered by TVU Networks, Chaubey spoke at length about his vision for the company going forward. In a virtual fireside chat with Indiantelevision.com founder, CEO, and editor-in-chief Anil Wanvari, Chaubey revealed that the company is in process of doing a collaboration with a large scale broadcaster in Goa.
Chaubey further mentioned that in the course of a month the organisation will have a dedicated show about Goa news. He is aiming to reach audiences across India through digital campaigns and cross promotion on various other platforms. Said he: “I think it is the best time to re-imagine the media landscape and I am glad to say that our organisation is not backed by some big corporate entity, but we are still trying to do something different.”
The India Ahead editor-in-chief is looking to delve deeper into Indian states in terms of specific coverage. "We are picking stories from the areas which are not even heard of," he claimed.
Wanvari asked Chaubey why prime time shows are not tackling enough issues and giving adequate representation of what is happening in India. The senior reporter explained that over the last ten years, broadcasting platforms are operating on the credo that talk is cheap and content creation is expensive. “Over this period, talk shows started replacing the entire existence of TV news itself. There used to be debate shows during morning, afternoon and evening. At India Ahead we are attempting to focus on collaboration and not just metro cities. Every Indian state has regional media houses, so there is no dearth of news, but the only challenge is nobody has attempted to delve deep into regional stories.”
Chaubey pointed out that contrary to the popular view propped up by rating organisations and marketing agencies, regional news fetches better ratings. According to him, at the end it’s the consumer who is benefited the most. When it comes to India Ahead, the news is dedicated to southern states every day from 1 pm to 5 pm. Later in the evening, the channel telecasts a show called People’s Editor, which again caters to different parts of the country.
The 2020 edition of the event will culminate with the grand News Television Awards, which will honour the best performers in the Indian news television space across more than 40 categories. The results will be declared virtually on 6 November 2020.
