The first Malayalam portal from Kerala, malayalam.webduniya.com, has decided to stop operations in Kerala. It is believed that the decision is due to the rising concerns of a prolonged economic crisis spreading through out the world including the media industry.

The portal’s founder editor T. Sasimohan confirmed the closure decision, saying the company’s chief operating officer and president Pankaj Jain told him last week about the end of Kerala operations. Sasimohan joined as Editor of Malayalam Webdunia during 2000 November leaving his top journalistic position in Mathrubhumi, the second largest Malayalam daily.

It is understood that Webdunia Malayalam team in Trivandrum is not ready to move to Chennai. Sometime back Webdunia management team visited Trivandrum and revealed their intention to move the office to Chennai, since the team members were not ready to move the idea was kept in cold storage.

Now Webdunia Malayalam have to findout a new members to update their site. They have a small Malayalam team for their localisation work and Yahoo updates. So they will be able to do that. But with out a strong content leadership the site will be in trouble in the future. But the question is whether they are just shifting the operations to Chennai or closing down the portal?

[Remember the  webdunia  yahoo incident of plagiarism. - see more about that here, here and here - Content team created with entry fresh graduates and managed by people with minuscule or no experience in the area of content was the reason for that, I understand.]

Is the same thing going to happen in malayalam.webdunia.com?

Last week medianama reported that, country’s largest media house Times of India Groups is planning to lay off around five percent staff. In this lot Times Internet will be sending around 200 people out.

Government is also considering FM phase III policy, which will add more than 780 radio channels in another 275 cities. This was revealed by Information and Broadcasting Secretary Sushma Singh.

Source: telecomlive.com

Rajdeep Sardesai, Editor-in-Chief, IBN Network, has been unanimously been elected as President of Editors’ Guild of India. Sardesai is the first ever TV editor to be elected to this post and he takes over from Alok Mehta, Editor, Naidunia Delhi.

After the election Rajdeep revealed his agenda as the Guild President, and said, “I have a five-point agenda to develop synergy amongst print, television and the Internet.”

Source: exchange4media.com

A speach by Rupert Murdoch entitled “The Future of Newspapers: Moving Beyond Dead Trees,” has been relayed nationally by the Australian Broadcasting Company recently. In the speach News told that News Corp’s Chairman and Chief executive told that Newspapers will survive and thrive in the 21st Century.

Internet is a new market that needs to be taken advantage of. Internet offers opportunities. But it is throwing challenges to the newspaper industry.

See the Transcript of the Lecture

Finally that is official. Star Group and Asianet is joining togther to own its entertainment channels. Till now there were rumours in the media circles. In Kerala Communist Marxist party was writing articles against the deal in its Newspaper Deshabhimani [Great Joke].

Star and Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s Jupiter formed a company for this with the name ‘Star Jupiter Entertainment Television Ltd’ (Star Jupiter).

Under the agreement and subject to regulatory approvals, Star Jupiter will become the majority shareholder of Asianet Communications Ltd (ACL), which currently broadcasts channels in Kannada (Suvarna), Telugu (Sitara) and Malayalam (Asianet, Asianet Plus). Vijay TV, the Tamil general entertainment channel currently operated and owned by Star, will now come under STAR Jupiter.

News channels of Asianet will not come under the purview of this deal. This was stated by the Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of Asianet K Madhavan.

I wonder why and how they are broadcasting news in their entertainment channel asianet. I watched their news even on 15 November 2008. Madhavan’s announcement was telecasted as a news in the same channel in its 10.30 news on 14 November 2008.

Prior to this development majority stake in Asianet Satellite Communications Ltd was held by M/s Asianet TV Holdings Pvt. Ltd, a company owned by M/s. Jupiter Entertainment Ventures Private Limited – a subsidiary of M/s. Jupiter Capitals Ltd., promoted by Mr. Rajeev Chandrasekhar.

Star and Jupiter are also exploring a wide range of new areas of cooperation, including film co-production by Fox Star Studios India and Indigo Movies, Jupiter Entertainment’s movie production arm.

Source: asianetglobal.com and exchange4media.com

TRAI is planning to bar political and religious bodies from entering public broad casting. But I do not understand how it is going to help. If a political party or a religious organisation is forming a company with their good friends in it and enter into broadcasting business what TRAI can do?

Are they going to intervene in the functioning of Malayalam Communications Ltd. [which owns Kairali, Malayalam Television Channel]. Are they going to intervene in the functioning of Jaihind Malayalam channel in which Congress Kerala Unit is planning to increase its investment.?

Let them define and solve that.

Source: exchange4media.com

Iran Government closed a prominent reformist weekly. The weekly was criticising the policies of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad quite often.

Iran’s Press Supervisory Board sent a letter on 08 November, Saturday to the Shahrvand-e Emrouz (Today’s Citizen) weekly formally informing it of the decision.

Recently the Weekly carried an editorial with a heading “Why does Iran not have an Obama?” This irritating editorial was the reason for the closure.

Another interesting information from Iran is that, Since 2000, the Press Supervisory Board and Iranian courts have closed some 100 publications condemning many as “pawns of the West” and accusing them of trying to undermine Iran’s system of clerical rule.

Source: arabianbusiness.com

ISRO is working on a project ‘Bhuvan’ which will map the Earth using Satellite. This will show images up to 10 metres. The first prototype will be available by November.

DETAILS ABOUT BHUVAN

Google Earth                                     Bhuvan

Zoom levels up to 200 mt                  Zoom levels up to 10 mt

Single layer information                     Multi-layer information

Images upgraded every 4 years          Images upgraded every year

No alternate viewing options             Options of viewing on different dates

Uses international satellites              Uses Indian satellites

Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Rumours are around that 9X media’s three channel properties have been sold to two parties. NewsX to Bhaskar Group and other two entertainment channels 9X and 9XM to Balaji Telefilms. Market talk is that the founders of INX media Indrani mukerjea and Peter Mukerjea [ former chief of Star] will be leaving the company. This new development if because of dearth of funds during this economic slowdown.

Balaji Telefilms was interested in starting pan Indian entertainment channels and regional channels for a while now. Is it true? With in days we will be knowing that. INX Group is having two companies, INX Media and INX News.

Source: exchange4media.com

The Media Research User’s Council (MRUC) has released the Indian Readership Survey 2008 R2 data. In an industry meet on November 4, 2008. The data would be available with all players for their individual analysis on November 5, 2008.

The MRUC did share the numbers of the top players in the various reported languages, further divided in dailies and magazines.

Magazine readership has come down. But still India Today it the highest read magazine. For me it a surprise!!

Malayala Manorama and Mathrubhumi lead among Malayalam publications. Though they have both declined and are now 121.8 lakh and 97.1 lakh, respectively.

Source: www.exchange4media.com