KOLKATA: The 24x7 Bengali news channel Focus Bangla, aims to tirelessly captivate its audiences, and is toiling hard on its programming and on introducing fresh and exciting content.
The channel, which is bullish about its growth in the regional market, has also recently introduced a new slot for a programme featuring one-to-one interviews with achievers in different fields once a week from 7.30 pm to 9 pm known as ‘Sojja Saapta’ (Being Straight Forward).
Interesting personalities like ex-Housing Minister Gautam Deb, Opposition leaders like Surya Kanta Mishra, State Urban Development Minister Firhad Hakim, have already participated and spoken straight from their hearts when it came to political discussion.
The newly appointed editor Arkaprabha Sarkar said: “Apart from airing news, we came out with this concept of one-to-one interaction so that the interviewees can express their views, which is not possible to telecast during news slots. We are a non-biased news channel.”
At present, Focus Bangla “airs news bulletins for 16.30 hours a day and another 1.30 hours is dedicated for advertorial content,” Sarkar added.
“We believe in presenting the news… We have not adopted any political line. In a nutshell, we are committed to democracy, secularism and pre-market economy,” he further commented.
“Focus Bangla also aims to reach more viewers in the region. It has also changed its logo with a promise to be “focused” in presenting unbiased news and create a better impact,” remarked Sarkar.
How was Focus Bangla actually christened? At the end of February 2014, 24x7 Bengali news channel North-East Bangla (NE Bangla), changed its name to Focus Bangla, simultaneously changing its logo, which suggested that the channel would be “focused” in presenting unbiased news. A different name with a clearly different stance.
Matang Sinh, a former Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs in the PV Narasimha Rao government, used to own Focus TV and NE Bangla. But towards the end of 2012, Naveen Jindal, chairman of Jindal Steel and Power Ltd. (JSPL) bought a stake in the channel through his family and associates.
“The market for Focus Bangla is still nascent. To compete with the bigwigs, it needs to stay focused. It's difficult to remain unbiased, especially when the other channels have shown their allegiance to certain political parties. But considering the pivotal role that media plays in a democratic set-up, households should stay as unbiased as possible. The role of media is not to take sides, rather to bring out the harsh truth, no matter how bitter it may sound,” said Abhishek Sengupta, a media analyst.
