MUMBAI: The Aroon Purie-controlled TV Today Network is once more on the march with plans to unveil a new channel and a media institute.

TV Today Network, which already manages the country's No. 1 news channel Aaj Tak, is now planning to launch a second sibling to Aaj Tak. The other channel in the stable is English news channel Headlines Today.

Sources in TV Today told Indiantelevision.com that an ad sales meeting that has been slated over Tuesday and Wednesday is likely to be told about the new initiatives so that marketing activities could be properly set in motion.

The sources indicated that the Network is contemplating coming out with another Hindi channel. However, the details of the proposed channel, which is targeting a launch over the next three months, are not forthcoming.

Meanwhile, company sources said that the media institute will be called TV Today Media Institute and would be engaged in training manpower for the TV industry in general and TV Today in particular.

Trained manpower is becoming a scarce commodity with demand being more than supply as TV channels mushroom all over.

This has lead to a situation where media companies, especially news channels, are trying their best to retain trained talent (read guard against poaching), but at a cost that has started telling on the bottomlines of these companies with the annual wage bill spiralling.

TV Today Network is targeting to start the institute mid-August or early September and the company would start promoting the institute through Aaj Tak and English sibling Headlines Today over the next few days.

The admissi on process for the same should start soon and the institute would look at having approximately
35 students as its first batch.

With the media institute, TV Today will join the ranks of companies like BAG Films, Jagran, Amity and Zee Telefilms, to name a few, which run media training outfits.

The TV Today scrip closed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Monday at Rs. 74.50, while the scrip opened at Rs 81.20.