CNBC's new show targets the young

CNBC, in tune with its strategy to target the out-of-home (OOH) segment - those who watch TV outside the home - has launched a new show, Young Turks, a half-hour weekly programme starting June 11. The show will be aired Tuesdays from 8.30 pm to 9.00 pm, with repeats on Saturdays 8.30 pm to 9.00 pm, and Sundays, 7.30 pm to 8.00 pm.

Each episode of Young Turks will be a portrait of two young people who have made a substantial contribution to a particular field. The show is aimed at attracting the younger members of corporate India, especially among the ‘Super SEC A' audience, comprising the financial community, chief executive officers and the middle management that the channel has been consistently wooing.

One of the main criteria for the show to decide whom to profile will be to look at people who have achieved a lot in a short span of time. The show will look at the factors that lead to success, and the obstacles that had to be overcome. The pilot episode of the show featured Sanjay Narang, the chief executive officer of the Mars Group, and Rajiv Pratap Rudy, the minister of state for commerce and industry. The other guests that the channel expects to have on further episodes of the show are Shravan Shroff of Shringhar Films, Nikhil Nanda of Escorts and Rajiv Vij of Franklin Templeton.

Analysts say that the new show is an attempt by CNBC to address an increasingly vocal and assertive segment of the corporate world - young managers in key positions. This also reflects the direction that a liberalised economy is expected to take. While the early phase of liberalisation featured the older established companies, the technological, media and other revolutions of the late 1990s, combined with the increasing reach of the service economy, have resulted in younger pioneers.

For example, in the United States, among the entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley, it is relatively younger people like Sabeer Bhatia of Hotmail fame, Desh Deshpande of Sycamore and KB Chandrashekar of Exodus who have excelled. Many reports foresee the same happening over here, with younger businessmen coming to the fore in the years to come, either as entrepreneurs or as managers, in direct contrast to the family-centred business houses of pre-liberalisation India.

Moreover, many of the bright boys of the early 1990s are in key positions now, and this is a trend that is expected to continue, with middle level managers, a key audience segment for the channel, expected to rise to the top, or at least hoping to do so in the years to come. Says Haresh Chawla, chief executive, CNBC India, "Along with Global Market Wrap, Young Turks joins the roster of shows aimed at meeting our viewers' need to stay cued in to changes in the environment - from developments in the international markets to shifts in business paradigms in India. The key objective here is to present viewers with knowledge that will help them achieve greater success in their business and careers."

Earlier the channel has had shows that focussed on personalities such as "Managing India", but this will be the first time that the channel focuses exclusively on the younger generation of corporate India, and by extension, on the younger audience of the OOH category. The new show is also in tune with the channel's general strategy of slowly moving out of its core audience segment, though hardcore financial news and analysis targeted at corporate viewers in their offices remains CNBC's core competency.

In fact, it is to underline this shift that CNBC came up with a programming mix that includes, for example, ‘magazine' programmes like Storyboard that takes a deeper look at vertical industry segments - in this case the advertising community. The channel has combined its programming with off-line attempts to address its core audience, such as hosting events like the Budget Round Table, the Moody's Mutual Fund Awards, and the Auto India Awards.

The new show is the latest in this programming strategy. © 2002 agencyfaqs!