MUMBAI: While assessing business news viewership to be less than one per cent of the 183-million television viewing homes, BTVi aims to be among the top three channels as it grows two and a half times in six months flat.

Business Television India (BTVi) will complete a year in August 2017 and its hard work seems to have catapulted its ratings on the BARC India charts. It claims to have doubled its Twitter following in a year.

BTVi's focus continues to be the main metros, where English business news consumption is on a higher side. The channel plans to strengthen its sales team by hiring some more senior executives in Mumbai, Delhi and south India. Recently, BTVi hired Shilpa Shetty and Seema Pisharody and made their revenue and strategy teams stronger.

BTVi COO Megha Tata said, “The business news genre is very small -- probably be less than a per cent, and there is space for three business channels to survive, eventually."

Talking about the growth of genre and BTVi as a channel, she said: “The genre has grown by about 104 per cent in the last 5-6 months, but BTVi has grown by 240 per cent, This growth is primarily owing to the content we are airing, is connecting well with the viewers." Says Tata: "We are planning to increase our ad rates soon.”

Talking about BTVi shows and their success, Tata said, “We have had some early wins, which are showing a positive trajectory. Shows launched recently are ‘Call BTVi’ and ‘Financial Planner’, of which the former got a very good response from across the country. We have almost about hundred calls waiting everyday -- an indicator that people are watching our channel."

"We are planning to launch more show in the coming months," she added. “Our sales team is in the process of getting more advertisers on board," Tata said.

BTVi recently stepped into the digital space by launching a mobile version of the channel and a website. It remains to be seen how the business strategy of the business channel works in the coming months.

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