MUMBAI: The Prannoy Roy-promoted NDTV Ltd is set to make its next big move in the news space by launching a news channel that will primarily cater to the metros for which the uplink and some other government permissions have been received.

The proposed channel is going by the working name of Metro Nation and will look at garnering local (city-specific) advertising revenue as it plugs increased local coverage.

It was last year that NDTV LTD applied for uplink clearance for the channel. The company has been toying with a channel to target the metros for quite some time now.

According to company sources, Metro Nation is likely to be put on air over the next two to three months time as details like content, distribution and pricing are fine tuned.

At present, NDTV LTD runs and manages three news channels --- English channel NDTV 24x7, Hindi channel NDTV India and business channel NDTV Profit.

Recently the company, through NDTV Profit, entered into an understanding with financial publication Business Standard for content share.

This agreement might be expanded in future to explore creation of TV content also by Business Standard, apart from the existing agreement that envisages a senior person from Business Standard managing the two partners' websites.