Star-Ananda channel to be launched today

According to Uday Shankar, the chief executive officer and editor of Star News, the main rationale behind the channel is to reach out to the growing number of viewers in West Bengal. ‘‘There is need for a channel that can offer high quality news along with views and analyses in the regional language but comparable to any Hindi or English channel,’’ said Shankar.

He said the launch was slightly deferred, but Star-Ananda will take television journalism to the next level.

At present, the regional channels are too localised, he felt. ‘‘We have worked a lot during the last six months — trained the editorial as well as technical teams, made a story-bank along with market survey, among other things’’, Shankar said.

The yearly budget for the channel was also not disclosed. Star News marketing manager Yogesh Manwani did not specify the spot-buy-rate (ad rates) for prime and non-prime time.