Tv Today To Be Closed Down

Seven months after starting TV Today magazine, Aroon Purie-controlled Living Media has decided to close down the weekly owing to accumulating losses. The move by Living Media is reportedly part of a restructuring plan, which includes converting its flagship publication India Today into a weekly.

The curtains were drawn on TV Today as it had failed to enthuse advertisers over the period of its existence despite being part of the well-oiled marketing setup of Living Media. Moreover, alternative means of augmenting revenue and circulation like having a 40-odd page TV Today supplement distributed with certain newspapers also did not work out for the television magazine which was avidly read by the entertainment industry at least.

 

Living Medias executive director, N P Singh, confirmed to Business Standard that the issue dated February 22-28 will be the last one for TV Today. Over the period of seven months since inception, the magazine had accumulated losses of approximately Rs 2.5 crore and it was felt that these losses cannot be sustained, he added.

Aroon Purie, according to Living Media sources, himself conveyed the decision to the staff members and one of the explanations forwarded was that probably the readers are still not prepared for such a magazine. Hampered by a distribution problem, Living Media at one time had been working on a plan to join hands with certain newspapers in the country where a downsized supplement of TV Today was to have been distributed with the newspaper(s) to target the readers of the vehicle-newspaper.

Though Living Media was interested in having such an arrangement with The Asian Age for all its centres in the country, exploratory talks had also been held with The Pioneer for Delhi and Lucknow. Both the newspapers, according to the sources, had shown interest but the deal could not be struck as the economics did not work out. Had the deal gone through, the TV Today supplement, comprising TV listings and some editorial pages, would have come to the partner-newspapers readers free every week.