TV News 3.0

The Future Of Television News Is Now.

Are You Ready For It?

Television news – which has played a crucial role in the world’s most momentous events, from wars and royal wedding to mankind’s first steps on the Moon – is in the midst of a digital-fueled revolution.

In its early years, TV news was monopolized by large corporations and state broadcasters who controlled what went on air and when.

Then technological advance in the 1980s enabled billionaires like Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch to muscle in and beam 24-hour news channels across the world via cable and satellite.

Today, we are living through a third, turbulent iteration: streaming over the internet, which is radically changing how television is produced, watched and delivered.

It has so dramatically lowered the coast of entry into what was once the exclusive domain of governments, multinationals and tycoons that almost anyone can now set up their own global news. Who and what can we trust?

In this stimulating and authoritative study, Zafar Siddiqi – who has launched and run four news channels across three continents – discusses the profound implications of this new are. Aimed at entrepreneurs, media students, industry insiders and anyone interested in TV news and its effect on humanity, it serves as a step-by-step guide for launching a news channel in the digital age.

They Say That Revolutions Do Not Come With A Manual. This One Does.

‘If you think the digital revolution in news spells the end of the 24-hour TV channel, read this book and think again.’

Zafar Siddiqi was an accountant who was with KPMG for 18 years, initially as a partner and later as the managing director of one of its consultancy practices. He left the world of spreadsheets in the early 1990s, having spotted an opportunity to launch a TV production house in his native Pakistan, specializing in providing business programs to overseas broadcasters.

A few years later, he saw the chance to launch a CNBC business network across 18 countries in the Middle East, the first international brand to broadcast in Arabic. This was quickly followed by his establishing similar networks across 39 countries in Africa, and in Pakistan. Later, he launched Samaa TV in Karachi, which is a 24-hour news and current affairs channel.

He also established Forbes Africa, FM Stations in Pakistan and in education has partnerships with Curtin University in Dubai and Lancaster University in Ghana.

He still serves as Chairman of all the businesses he is involved with, spending much of his time on their strategic direction, not least in wresting with the challenges they face from the digital evolution that this book deals with.