2005-2014

Surrogate advertisements on liquor and tobacco products will no more be aired on the television as the I&B Ministry plans to check direct/indirect promotion of harmful substances. In plain words, advertisements on Bagpiper soda, Kingfisher mineral water, McDowell soda, Bacardi Blast CDs and other products from the liquor stables will not be allowed on TV. In a circular dated April 12, the Ministry...

Associated with 'courage' and 'the naked truth', Tehelka has made a resounding comeback. In 2001, the Tehelka news portal was put out of business for exposing corruption in high places in a sting operation on arms deals. Reborn almost three years later as a weekly newspaper, Tehelka has made a mark on the strength of its investigative stories, reaching a print run of 100,000 within one year of its...

Sakal Papers have launched Agro Won, the first ever daily in India, devoted to Agriculture on 19th April 2005. Agro Won is 16 pages strong and is published in Marathi . Agro Won is printed in tabloid format. Agro Won was launched by Sharad Pawar, Union Minister for Agriculture, and noted agricultural expert N. D. Mahanor was the Chief Guest. Balasaheb Thorat, Maharashtra Minister for Agriculture...

Faced with disquiet among the media-watchers over "sting operations" using hidden cameras, the Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry is considering a regulatory mechanism to protect the privacy of individuals. Still under consideration, the view firming up in the Ministry apparently favours the introduction of a clause to address "sting operations" in the proposed Broadcasting Bill. A...

The fight for the numero uno position between Businessworld and Business Today continues unabated. While one boasts of high readership, the other stakes its claims on circulation. Both ABC and IRS figures are grist to the mill for the two leading business magazines in this war of numbers. Businessworld, from the Anandabazar Patrika Group, prefers to stake its leadership claims on the basis of ABC...

Newspaper and news agency employees from various parts of the country on Tuesday marched to Parliament demanding a new wage board and a ban on FDI in the print media. The employees, under the banner of Confederation of Newspaper and News Agency Employees Organisations, marched carrying banners and placards and shouting slogans. They were stopped at the Parliament Street Police Station. Leaders of...

The government is working on a comprehensive broadcast bill to regulate television channels. The Cable Television Network Act of 1995 and the programmes and advertising codes prescribed in the cable rules are the only guidelines which entertainment channels have to follow. There is hardly any supervision of what news channels beam. The Shakti Kapoor incident, where a private channel carried out a...

A study to be released today shows that the proliferation of high-speed Internet service is not taking audiences away from television or other media, including newspapers and magazines. Research was commissioned by Yahoo! and communications firm Mediaedge:cia. Findings are set to be disclosed during a Yahoo! forum at the Museum of Television and Radio in GothamGotham. Study by Forrester Research...

A new generation of technology-savvy young people are getting their news in ways that threaten the very viability of newspapers and other traditional news media, according to a study commissioned by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. "Abandoning the News," the study written by MSNBC.com's founding editor-in-chief, Merrill Brown, adds more grim statistics to growing literature documenting the...

At a time when mobile and wireless platforms are attracting advertisers, it’s the traditional print media that is holding its own. Thanks to extraordinary growth in certain categories. Consider this. Display retail shops, which were ranked as the 115th category in 2003 vis-a-vis ad spend in newspapers and magazines, jumped to 11th position in 2004. Vocational training institutes, which were 102nd...