Ramoji Rao gearing up to launch ETV Bharat in 13 languages

Ramoji Rao, the media baron from South India, riding on the success of leading Telugu news daily Eenadu and television channel ETV, is now gearing up to launch ETV Bharat. It is his foray into the digital world with content that can be accessed through a mobile application and a web portal. ETV Bharat is being billed as a unique offering of news and infotainment across 13 languages with the USP of offering localised content.

The key point being that it does not see itself as a news aggregator but will have its own content generation and for that it is busy recruiting a team that can deliver content in 12 languages apart from English. K. Bapineedu Choudhary, who is leading the initiative, told Business Today that the USP is in delivering content across "13 languages that is video-centric, state-specific  mobile app", ensuring that while it stays national in terms of presence, "there is local content and local presence."

He said a separate team of writers is being set up for this. The 13 languages other than English include Hindi, Telugu, Urdu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, Punjabi, Odia and Assamese.

While he did not wish to discuss the revenue model at this juncture, those in the know say it could be a mix of subscription and advertisement. The date for the launch is not yet fixed but it could be sometime next calendar year though there is no official confirmation on this. After all , as some tracking this, point out, if it is seeing content generation as its differentiator vis-a-vis most other apps then it may well want to have it up and running before the elections.