MUMBAI: Sahara India Parivar today launched yet another 24-hour free-to-air regional news channel for Bihar and Jharkhand, which will bring forth local news from all parts of the states. This is the fourth news channel from the Sahara Samay bouquet on the lines of the ones for UP and Uttranchal, MP & Chattisgarh and Mumbai.
The company plans to launch six more regional channels in 2005.
Sahara Media and Entertainment senior vice president Ambikanand Sahay formally launched the channel, which was running on test signals up till today. Sahara Samay vice president-news Prabhat Dabral, Sahara Media and Entertainment vice president-sales Monica Srivastava, principle officer CB Singh were also present on the occasion.
Sahay said that Sahara Samay Bihar and Jharkhand would not only telecast hard news in its true shade and form but also reflect the aspirations of the people of the two states. "In fact, no news worth the name- good, bad or sad- would go uncovered," he said, adding that the idea was to give people of Bihar and Jharkhand a livewire, dynamic channel, which will be truly theirs.
National and international news apart, the channel will cover news from almost every nook and corner of the state through its wide network of over one hundred correspondents. The channel has seven major bureaus manned by experienced reporters and equipped with state-of-the-art machinery for live coverage.
Explaining the strong trend in regional viewership in India, Dabral said, "Sahara has pioneered the concept of regional channels in the Hindi belt and is giving tough fight to the national channels. With an unparalled network spread across the country, state of the art technology and over a 1000 journalists we plan to replicate the success, achieved in UP, MP and Bihar."
"The channel has been launched at an appropriate time before the Bihar elections. It will have a host of programmes capturing the actual action from the election arena with in-depth analysis of the events happening in and around Bihar and Jharkhand," he added.
According to Sahara India Pariwar head corporate communication Abhijit Sarkar, "Sahara Media and Entertainment Ltd. has already established itself as the leader in the media industry. With the launch of several regional news channels, we endeavor to provide quality and accurate news from every corner of the country to all its citizens. We have always been the voice of the people and will continue doing so in future too."
Sahara Samay Bihar and Jharkhand will have a total of seven bureaus with five bureaus at Bihar in Patna, Muzaffarpur, Gaya, Purnea, Bhagalpur and two at Jharkhand in Ranchi and Jamshedpur. The bureaus in Bihar and Jharkhand apart, the Sahara Samay network has the benefit of having as many as 38 powerful satellite connected field stations spread across the country.
