The Launch
CNN-IBN officially aired for the first time on national television on December 17 2005. There were pre-launch campaigns airing in some of the mainstream prime-time channels in India like Sony TV, which also meant that they were going to be members of the Sony Bouquet. The advertising campaigns were centered around Rajdeep Sardesai and the now famous tagline of “Whatever it takes” – a spirit that Rajdeep says in an interview “has gone on to make CNN-IBN what it is today.”
The launch of the channel was kept low-key, minus the sensationalism that other media publications resorted to in order to follow the principle of “starting with a bang”. The journalistic content that surrounded the launch is worth notice. There were parallel reports of how children or humans were being used as ploughs or land tillers by the family to produce the yield in both Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. This report gave impetus to both several NGOs and politicians of the areas mentioned to aggressively pursue it in Parliament and within two days, an NGO from Hyderabad came forward to sponsor the child’s education who till the time the news was broken, was doing what an ox or a bull would normally do.
Another programming success that CNN-IBN achieved immediately after its launch was the interview of Sonia Gandhi. This was the first interview she gave to a national television channel after the UPA came to power in 2004. Recognizing the competition, NDTV followed this up with what they claimed to be an “exclusive content”. Two weeks into the launch, a new series of a grueling and hard-talking interview with Karan Thapar “Devil’s Advocate” began with Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf. This clearly stated the aggression with which CNN-IBN was going about their business.
CNN-IBN officially aired for the first time on national television on December 17 2005. There were pre-launch campaigns airing in some of the mainstream prime-time channels in India like Sony TV, which also meant that they were going to be members of the Sony Bouquet. The advertising campaigns were centered around Rajdeep Sardesai and the now famous tagline of “Whatever it takes” – a spirit that Rajdeep says in an interview “has gone on to make CNN-IBN what it is today.”
The launch of the channel was kept low-key, minus the sensationalism that other media publications resorted to in order to follow the principle of “starting with a bang”. The journalistic content that surrounded the launch is worth notice. There were parallel reports of how children or humans were being used as ploughs or land tillers by the family to produce the yield in both Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. This report gave impetus to both several NGOs and politicians of the areas mentioned to aggressively pursue it in Parliament and within two days, an NGO from Hyderabad came forward to sponsor the child’s education who till the time the news was broken, was doing what an ox or a bull would normally do.
Another programming success that CNN-IBN achieved immediately after its launch was the interview of Sonia Gandhi. This was the first interview she gave to a national television channel after the UPA came to power in 2004. Recognizing the competition, NDTV followed this up with what they claimed to be an “exclusive content”. Two weeks into the launch, a new series of a grueling and hard-talking interview with Karan Thapar “Devil’s Advocate” began with Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf. This clearly stated the aggression with which CNN-IBN was going about their business.