NEW DELHI: Doordarshan hopes to launch a separate English news channel by July this year by splitting the present bilingual English-Hindi news channel.

DD News Director General S M Khan told indiantelevisiom.com he was confident of achieving the target of July for creating two news channels - English and Hindi - from the existing DD News channel.

He said the public broadcaster had conducted a survey which showed that viewers favoured separate channels for the two languages.

    
He was also confident that both the news channels -- DD Samachar and DD News -- will continue to get adequate advertisement support.

Khan said the two channels would pool news and work in unison. Some new programmes were also being planned as there would be more time available on both the news channels.

DD Director General Tripurari Sharan said that discussions and news will be presented in one-hour format for both Hindi and English news.

Attempts have also been made to make use of appropriate technology to upgrade the standard of presentation, Sharan said.