The Channel | 2004 | September

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the channel | 49
Asian News International – or ANI – is
today South Asia’s premier multi media
news agency. From its humble beginnings
in the mid-seventies, ANI has risen to be the
prime news gathering vehicle for the news
media of not just South Asia but for many
other subscribers around the world looking
for news from that part of the world – among
them the leading international broadcasters.
Founded in 1975 as a corporate entity with
the objective of providing unbiased and
independent news, ANI is based in New
Delhi with correspondents and news
cameramen spread all over South Asia.
ANI provides a comprehensive multi media
news service. The newspaper industry in
India is big and the press is fiercely
independent. ANI’s print service goes to a
large chunk of the newspapers of India.
These include the leading dailies such as
the Times of India, The Hindu , and
Hindustan Times.
India’s TV market is burgeoning. The
country has fourteen 24-hour news channels.
Indians have a voracious appetite for news.
Even as the TV channels have their own vast
news gathering apparatus, most of them
subscribe to the TV News Service of ANI.
ANI takes special care that editorially the
service meets the exacting standards
demanded by the TV channels. It is this care
that ensures for ANI that it remains on track
to meet its revenue goals.
Following its tradition of keeping in tune
with the changing times, ANI has come up
with an innovative Multimedia News
Service (web-enabled multimedia news
content) designed for web publishing. This
product provides the web publishing
community with the tools to offer their
visitors a rich mix of video, audio and text.
This service is ideal for Horizontal and
ANI – taking Asia to the world
Asian News International was founded in 1975 and is now billed as ‘South Asia’s leading multimedia
news agency’. Founder Prem Prakash gives an overview of what the organisation stands for today.
Vertical portals, Corporate websites, Niche
websites and all websites who want to
provide their visitors with an exciting
multimedia experience in news and general
interest features.
Each country looks at news from its own
perspective. It is thus that you find that there
is such paucity of international news on most
US or European channels. If there is some,
it is edited to meet the editorial needs and
perspective of the country concerned.
Apart from supplying newspapers and TV
channels, ANI also provides audio bites and
reports to radio stations around the world.
In a globalised world, as nations become
economically interactive, they want to know
more about each other as well. Thus to ANI
the TV and other news media markets of
Europe and America are just as important.
You will find that for the visiting journalists
of Western media in New Delhi, ANI is the
first stop for information on South Asia. At
the headquarters of ANI in New Delhi,
correspondents are able to access news
material of all that is happening in South
Asia. But that is not all, ANI’s fully
computerised library is the largest storehouse
of South Asian archive material.
The pressures of war on terror and the
resultant news coverage of terror have
also had their toll on the ANI staff. The
lives of two cameramen have been lost
–one in Kashmir and the other when
terrorists tried to storm the Parliament
House in New Delhi. But then ANI was
covering terrorism long before
September 11.
Apart from providing a round the clock news
service, ANI also produces a number of
current affairs shows such as Dateline
Punjab, India This Week, South Asia News
line, Hello Bollywood etc. These shows are
fully packaged and ready to air. Produced
primarily in English, the shows are also
produced in other languages dependent on
client requirements.
Looking ahead, ANI keeps itself abreast –
if not ahead – of the technology that has
brought so much change to the business of
newsgathering. Its goal is to deliver news to
the newsrooms, as it happens – be it to the
newsrooms in newspapers, or TV channels,
or radio stations or web sites. That goal is
being well met.
I feel the biggest achievement of ANI since
its inception has been establishing the
credibility and the respect that the service now
commands among its subscribers. ANI editors
diligently stick to facts, without making any
editorial judgement. For me personally, as the
founder of this news service and as someone
who pioneered the emergence of independent
TV programme production in India, it has
been satisfying to witness the growth of ANI
into a truly professional organisation
working to demanding professional
standards. The future belongs only to those
who will stand by such exacting
professional and editorial standards.
Editing the content at ANI
ANI’s library of South Asian news material
Prem Prakash MBE
is a pioneer of the
Indian TV industry.
While President of the
TV Programme
Producers Guild of
India, Prakash founded
ANI-Asian News
International in 1975. Based in London since
his retirement, he looks after the news
gathering operations and business interests
of ANI in the UK and Europe. He was
decorated by the Queen in 1997 with an
MBE for his contribution to the growth of
the TV news industry in India and the UK.
On location with ANI
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