KOLKATA: ‘North East Live’, a 24x7 satellite news channel from the house of Pride East Entertainments that was launched in Arunachal Pradesh last year is on an expansion spree. In the next six-seven months, the channel plans cover all the seven north-eastern states of India. As a part of that, the channel will be hiring 100 employees including journalists and technical staffs.

However, the channel, which was in talks with various multiple system operators (MSOs) and direct-to-home (DTH) players, had to bear the brunt of high distribution charges because of which it has even given up the plans of all India distribution for the time-being. “The high carriage fee demanded by them makes it difficult for us to subscribe,” said Pride East Entertainments CEO Caushiq Bezboruah.

Still North East Live can be watched at some places including Kolkata, few parts of Madhya Pradesh among others. “We have tied up with Siticable in Kolkata,” he said.

However, the company has opted for an AOS application that would increase its penetration and has even seen considerable downloads in the north eastern market. “Apart from the AOS application, our website also provides all the audio-visuals of the news,” said Bezboruah.

The Guwahati-based Pride East Entertainment also runs three other channels – Newslive, a news channel; and general entertainment channels (GEC) channels Rang and Ramdhenu. The company has around 350 employs working for it, of which, a team of 50 work for North East Live. “We have set up a studio at Arunachal Pradesh and for the Guwahati reporting, the infrastructure and manpower of ‘Newslive’ are used,” said Bezboruah.

The feed for North East Live is uplinked from Guwahati presently and the company will continue to do so in future as well, informs Bezboruah.