Defining Moments: G. Krishnan: Looking in the Mirror

G. Krishnan, executive director and CEO, TV Today Network, revisits the old days and says that life is all about learning.

I joined The Economic Times in 1978 in Kolkata, and in 1983, shifted base to Mumbai. My first defining moment or the big moment at the TOI group came in September 1988 when I was involved with its 150th anniversary celebrations that was called the 'Sesquicentennial Year'. As part of the team organising the event, we were able to successfully bring Bruce Springsteen to perform at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi. It was for the first time he had performed in India, so that was very interesting.

The next interesting phase came in the same year. The TOI decided to completely change the way the group used to function and changed a commodity (the newspaper) to a complete brand.

During my tenure with the TOI group I had many turning points. One such moment came in 1993 when I launched India's first private FM channel, Times FM. That launch played a significant role in my life because I was starting something completely new that had no connection to the newspaper business. It allowed me to learn production, content, and how to put them all together. At the same time, I was also involved with a lot of events on television, most of which we could buy from Doordarshan (DD) and then produce it for the channel.

While I was working and developing content for television, I realised that it would be News on TV that would drive the future of the television business though it did not mean that other media will have problems. Television gives you a bigger opportunity to do what you were doing in newspapers.

Therefore, in 1995, I shifted to Delhi, and joined TV Today which was a production company then. The turning point came when we launched Aaj Tak, a 20-minute show on Doordarshan. Later, we produced several other shows during the Budget and Elections of 1997 for both channels -- DD and DD Metro in English and Hindi.

We had to air both the shows in two different languages at the same time, which meant a lot of logistical work. We learnt how new technologies can be put to use in television. At the same time, we launched a fantastic advertising campaign for Aaj Tak, in 1995, which was all colour and helped create a lot of buzz.

I think life is all about learning, and each time you learn something new. Going forward with this philosophy there came -- in the year 2000 -- one of the biggest moments of my life when Aaj Tak was turned into a full-fledged 24-hour news channel. Once again, we launched a wonderful advertising campaign. However, this time we decided to go black-and-white. This, too, generated a lot of hype.

After the launch of Aaj Tak, we kept going ahead and launched new channels like Headlines Today, Delhi Aaj Tak and Tej. The next important phase came when we went international in 2003-04 and launched Aaj Tak and Headlines Today in markets such as the US, the UK, Canada and Nepal.

The business of news changes continuously. With technology moving fast, the modalities of the business will only become more exciting in the future.