NDTV calls for pitch; eight agencies in the fray

Prannoy Roy's New Delhi Television has invited eight agencies to pitch for its Rs 4-6-crore advertising account. While NDTV officials involved in the process could not be contacted for details, information available with agencyfaqs! indicates that the Delhi-headquartered company has briefed four agencies for its English channel and another four for the Hindi channel. The agencies in the running include Leo Burnett, St Luke's, Contract Advertising, Grey Worldwide India, Euro-RSCG, RKSwamy/BBDO, McCann-Erickson and TBWAAnthem.

The presentation for the English channel happened yesterday and that for the Hindi channel is slated for today. For obvious reasons, NDTV officials are tight-lipped about the event; so are the agencies in the running. But sources say the back-to-back presentation, which started yesterday morning, went on till late in the evening. The presentation involved strategy, creative and media. The result is expected "soon".

What could not be ascertained were the names of the agencies that specifically pitched for the English channel and those that will make their presentations for the Hindi channel today. It is obvious though that the NDTV brass is looking for two different agencies for the English and the Hindi channels. It is also known that the accounts would be serviced out of Mumbai.

While the size of the business (the spends on English and Hindi put together is expected to be Rs 4-6 crore) may not be large, the task for the new agencies is not going to be easy. Essentially because it would entail the task of launching a new channel as well as taking the equity of NDTV to a higher plane. Here a little background on NDTV's bid to launch its own news channels might come in handy. NDTV, which currently supplies news content to STAR, is slated to go solo in February next year when the NDTV-STAR agreement runs out its course in 2003.

On its part, STAR plans to have just one news channel (as opposed to one Hindi and one English channel, as reported earlier in the media). The news content would be in the proportion of 40 per cent Hindi and 60 per cent English. Some reports also indicate that the new STAR News channel will be modeled on the lines of the hugely successful Fox News operation in the United States. In short, it would be a channel very different from the STAR News we see today, with a completely new look, new ID and logo. STAR India has already announced the appointment of ex-Sony, ex-HFCL-Nine Broadcasting hand Ravina Raj Kohli as the president of STAR News. © 2002 agencyfaqs!