Leading current affairs network, GBN, is entering into a joint venture with print media heavyweight Lokmat, to launch a 24-hour Marathi news & current affairs channel. It is likely to be a 50:50 joint venture and the channel will go on-air by year-end, Sameer Manchanda, Joint MD of GBN, said.

Excerpts from CNBC-TV18’s exclusive interview with Sameer Manchanda:

Q: How much money have you put in and when can we see the channel launch?

A: The channel will be launched I think before the end of this year. We are hoping for a launch in November - December.

Money; well it’ll be similar to what other regional channels’ launch. So I think a total investment for this launch from both the sides will be to the tune of about USD 6-7 million.

Q: When do you see the revenues coming in from this channel and how much of a growth do you see this channel accruing to the financials of GBN at this point in time?

A: When we launched CNN-IBN, the market was, I think growing, and we breached breakeven and made money actually in the fifth quarter. We are quite optimistic about it and we think the regional market is growing exponentially.

Marathi is one of the languages and our foray into regional languages has commenced from Marathi. I think this is going to be a growth phase and we are very clear that we want to be a leader in this new segment and we hope to breakeven pretty soon. So frankly, our point is that we breakeven pretty soon.

We have taken giant steps to be in the Marathi foray. We bring in the television expertise and we think with Lokmat, it’s the fourth largest Indian daily and in Marathi, it’s about 1.2 million copies a day. So I think a combination of print and television is one going to reduce the cost of operations - one, gives us the clout and second is, gives us lot of marketing.

Q: Is competition a concern, since the Maharashtra region is inflicted with a lot of channels already?

A: Lot of channels, yes. But the market is growing.

So I think in the growth phase, competition is of course, one we’ve got to look at. But again saying that, do we have the thing to be a winner? I think we have the necessary ingredients to be a winner.

So I think we are pretty comfortable with entering into this segment and saying, we would like to be the leader in this space in the next one year.

Q: Any numbers that you have worked out in terms of revenues when the channel breaks even or starts contributing to the financials?

A: If you look at a typical topline in any kind of regional foray, if you get to get in a year and a half about USD 10-10.5 million, it’s fine. But your breakeven is very low. So, I think we’d aim aggressively.

If you look at it, what’s our regional strategy and what drives it; it is similar to what the US is. The US region is 1000 local networks and it has total sales of USD 25 billion.

We think the retail, the real estate and the growing economy is actually going to drive regionalism in a big manner. So I think we all could be surprised by the topline numbers.