The Telugu television industry is undergoing severe crisis at present. Especially, the news channels have been going through a turbulent period, due to domination of politicians in the management.
Only those channels which have sound political backing, especially from the ruling party, are able to sustain to some extent, while even those having direct or indirect affiliation to opposition parties are running in huge losses.
So, one channel after the other is getting wound up due to mounting losses.
We have seen channels like Studio N, Express TV, Vissa TV etc. getting closed. And others like Maha TV, 99 TV, CVR News etc which changed hands are not in a position to pay their salaries to the staff properly.
Even HMTV is incurring losses, but is able to pay salaries to the staff with great difficulty.
As of now, only big channels like TV9, NTV, TV5, Sakshi TV and ETV are able to make some profits and employees in these channels are safe.
According to latest reports, yet another television channel Raj News is up for sale.
Originally belonging to a Tamil television network, former MP and present MLA Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy had acquired major share in it a couple of years ago and had been running it.
But now, with the Congress failing to come to power in Telangana and Komatireddy’s political career being in doldrums, he opted out of the channel and gave it back to the original promoters. They are now looking for a new investor.
Sources said a senior BJP leader is expected to take over the Raj News channel soon.
It is learnt popular news presenter Venkata Krishna, who was till recently with an Andhra-based AP 24X7 channel, is likely to be the new CEO of Raj News.
Watch out for more developments!