Expanding the horizons of the digital medium, the multi-lingual TV9 Network is launching News9 Plus, an English video news magazine in an OTT format.

The digital descendent of News9, the network’s erstwhile popular English news channel, is slated for a beta launch this month and a full-scale take-off late in March.

It will be the world’s first pure-play subscription-driven, on-demand news product, which will showcase news, narratives, and debates with the depth and gravitas of news magazines and the production qualities and story-telling techniques of OTT platforms, TV9 said in a statement Monday.

News9 Plus will host a variety of ‘rail tracks’, which will cater to the news of the day to provide context to the extensive programming that will define the app. It will showcase editorially-rich, long shelf-life content that has relevance beyond the immediate.

Subscribers will find unique series, seasons, and episodes on News9 Plus, just like OTT platforms offer. But the differentiator here will be the editorial nuance and the rigor of journalism that makes the content factually grounded, credibly narrated, and engagingly produced, the company claimed.

Commenting on the launch, Barun Das, CEO, TV9 Network said, “Historically, the Indian news genre has undermined itself with a huge self-created handicap. It has never leveraged India’s core strength —its large consumer base. Newspapers have always subsidised the reader and TV news channels are mostly free to air. Hence, we have lived with tremendous pressure on ad revenue.

“On the other hand, consumers have just about started paying for digital news. However, this propensity to pay for digital news will depend on how effectively digital news platforms can serve the consumer ‘what they want, when they want’.”

 According to Das, the English news television space has “shrunk dramatically” over the past few years in viewership and revenue. “So, it seemed obvious to us that this English-speaking audience – often the early adapters – are waiting for an OTT news service,” he added.

“News is no more about breaking it as it happens every nano-second on social media. It must now adapt to the new, exacting content standards which the ‘GenFlix’, or Generation Netflix, has become accustomed to. News9 Plus will fill the void created by the diminishing footprint of news magazines in the digital era. And it will do it in the only medium the digital native cares about the video,” Das explained.

However, sounding a note of caution for the news industry, Das said: “We are proud to be the first OTT news service, not only in India but, possibly, in the world. I sincerely hope that when the OTT news service pans out in India, it will not repeat the blunders of the past in creating its death trap by setting off subscription price wars and rendering the business unviable. I am certain this new model will be an SVOD  model and advertising revenue, if any, will make only a minuscule contribution.”

BV Rao, Group Editor, TV9 Network said, “At TV9 Network, it is clear to us where the discerning English news viewer is going and why. The ‘GenFlix’ English news viewers are not running away from the news. They are running away from the cacophony that television news has come to represent.”