Before CNN-IBN entered the mainstream Indian news market, there were clear signs of the market being highly divided into extreme brackets of a monopoly and non-players. The primary idea of the channel was to compete with the leaders by playing an aggressive challenger role and then adapt itself to the nitigrities and possibly emerge as market leaders. NDTV ruled the roost in the English market with a clear and dominant share of 60% with other players like Headlines Today and Doordarshan News making up the rest, with hardly any presence. The other aim that IBN entered the market with was to diversify itself into other local or regional languages once it establishes its foothold in the Indian news market.
Intelligent Media, the media and market research partners of IBN before and after the launch came up with a pre-launch survey where several key questions concerning the channel were put forward and answered. The survey consisted of questions pertaining to the type of channel they would prefer to watch and the editorial content of the same. Another factor that determined the survey was the fact that the audiences or the viewers wanted to see IBN’s current Editor-in-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai back on TV, after 7 months of him being off-air. This perhaps gave IBN the much required thrust to go ahead and launch their venture sometime mid-December.
Intelligent Media, the media and market research partners of IBN before and after the launch came up with a pre-launch survey where several key questions concerning the channel were put forward and answered. The survey consisted of questions pertaining to the type of channel they would prefer to watch and the editorial content of the same. Another factor that determined the survey was the fact that the audiences or the viewers wanted to see IBN’s current Editor-in-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai back on TV, after 7 months of him being off-air. This perhaps gave IBN the much required thrust to go ahead and launch their venture sometime mid-December.