Krishna TV hands over advertising sales to Fourth Dimension Media

The four-month old heritage channel expects revenue of Rs 7-9 crore by the end of the first year.

Fourth Dimension Media has been appointed to handle the advertising sales for the Tamil Nadu-based channel, Krishna TV. The space selling company expects to grow the channel's revenues by 15-20 per cent.

Launched last year, Fourth Dimension Media Solutions also represents New Generation Media Corporation's Puthiya Thalaimurai group of magazines, the 24-hour Tamil news channel Puthiya Thalaimurai TV, and Chennai Live, an English radio station.

Shankar B, CEO, Fourth Dimension Media Solutions, says, "We have been working in the domain for quite some time now, and we have researched on what kind of brands would be interested in a heritage channel like Krishna TV. We expect that the interesting programming line-up of the channel must attract more and more advertisers from specific categories. We will largely target categories such as banks, telecom service providers and spiritual products."

Krishna TV, promoted by Padmashree Dr. Krishna Swamy and Dr. Subramanya Swamy, was launched four months ago and is available across Tamil Nadu (except Chennai) through Tamil Nadu government's MSO, Arasu. The MSO will establish itself in Chennai within the next two months.

While the channel mainly targets SEC A and B, it focuses on all age groups, except kids. Though there is no specific programming for the kids, the channel looks forward to launch kids-centric shows in the near future. Also, the channel will soon be carried worldwide by a CDN network managed by Tata Communications.

Dr Krishna Swamy, co-chairman, Krishna TV, says, "We chose Fourth Dimension because it is effective in the Tamil Nadu market. We are a niche channel with programming which is primarily focussed on religion and heritage. Instead of establishing a marketing department of the channel, we decided to hand it over to a media sales agency. There were a couple of companies whom we spoke to, and we found out that this company was well established and a specialist in its domain. We hope to bring in good brands into Krishna TV by using non conventional routes of advertising."

The channel boasts of a strong programming line up, mainly focusing on classical art, dance, music and culture. It also explores the Harikatha exponents. It claims to be different from the typical spiritual channel and hence calls itself a heritage channel.

Krishna TV recently celebrated an 'inter-religion harmony day', which had discussions amongst the representatives of different communities. The content of the channel is 75-80 per cent in Tamil, while the rest is in English.

Swamy adds, "The main obstacle for us is that we have policy restrictions due to the specific content factor. Hence, our expectations are not very high. We look forward to clock Rs 7-9 crore by the end of the first year, while by the end of the second year, it is expected to be Rs 25 crore."