Common Minimum Airwaves

Chandra has been looking at Bengal for quite some time now. With just an also-ran entertainment channel, Zee Bangla, a 24-hour news channel, was just the right way to expand business in the Marxist bastion. For Akash Bangla, an entertainment channel with a smattering of news, a second channel newsy in content appeared an ideal combo.

The channel will have a national footprint, as it will be on the Zee platform. Chobbish Ghanta will beam news and current affairs 24 hours, making it only the third Bengali news channel, after Sahara News and Star Ananda. The alliance, it is learnt, will be formally inked in a few days. A little bit of backgrounder now on how the two partners got together. Last year, the largest cable company in the state, RPG Cable, was on the block. Zee’s cable arm Siti was more than willing to buy, even as a third cable company from Tamil Nadu was negotiating for a stake. Siti finally closed the deal, with apparently the CPI(M)’s blessings. From there to a news channel—just the right way to seal a friendship.