Sanjay Pugalia

Sanjay Pugalia is a veteran Indian political and business journalist with print and broadcast experience who is the former editor-in-chief of CNBC Awaaz in Mumbai, India. He was hired as a senior news director by several start-up Hindi-language news channels at their launching, including Star News[1] and CNBC Awaaz.[2]

Pugalia has been a leader of several of the private, independent channels as India's media industry was developing 24-news channels beginning in the 1990s – Aaj Tak, Zee News, Star News and now CNBC Awaaz—all of which competed against Doordarshan, India's public television network, and its DD News.[3] The independent TV channels gave Hindi-language journalism in India a visible platform from which to compete against English-language journalism, which created a shift toward Hindi during this era.[4]

Persona

Sanjay Pugalia grew up in Sahibganj, Jharkhand, where his father was a businessman.[5] Pugalia has university degrees in history and political science.[6] During his student years, he read a magazine called Ravivaar, which was edited by Surendra Pratap Singh and Pugalia says this Hindi-language publication influenced him to begin a career in journalism.[5] He is listed as a founding member of the Foundation for Media Professionals, which is a journalism association for all professionals regardless of format.[7]

Career

In more than 25 years as a journalist, Sanjay Pugalia has worked in both print and broadcast journalism. He has worked with The Times Group, Business Standard,[8] Aaj tak,[8] Zee News,[8] Star News,[8] and CNBC Awaaz.[2] While he has worked in Hindi and English journalism, he has primarily been a Hindi-language journalist.

Print

He began his career as a journalist with the leading Hindi daily Navbharat Times, an outlet of The Times Group, in 1982 and stayed for 10 years.[5] As a young correspondent, Pugalia filed a number of investigative reports involving big corporate houses between 1986 and 1991. He was the youngest person to be made special correspondent in the Times Group.[7] He left Navbharat Times for the Business Standard, an English newspaper, where he worked for three years and was deputy bureau chief.[5][8]

Television

During the 1990s, Pugalia contributed to BBC Hindi Service's programmes.[6][9]

He worked for TV Today Network. In 1996, Pugalia was appointed as associate executive producer with a newly launched Hindi television news show on the network's Aaj Tak channel.[8] S.P. Singh, who had earlier influenced Pugalia, was behind Aaj Tak.[4] During this time, Pugalia first became known among Indians for his live anchoring of election programmes in Hindi. He later left Aaj Tak for Nine Broadcasting, until it went out of business, and he was hired as the executive director of Zee News[8][10]

He left to become news director for Star TV in mid-2002 and work with former colleague from Nine Broadcasting Ravina Raj Kohli, who was president of news, when Star launched its own 24-hour news channel.[1] While a director at STAR News, he developed more consumer-oriented news programming in prime time shows. But he was there for only a short time in 2002 before the owner shuffled the staff.[11]

Since 2004, he has worked with CNBC-TV18, which launched in 2005.[2][9] Five years later, he won an award for best news show host and said, "CNBC Awaaz has taken business news in Hindi into the mainstream of news on business. CNBC Awaaz has widened its reach and was able to attract viewers ..."[12] With its emphasis on consumer news, CNBC Awaaz by 2010 had increased its audience fourfold since launching.[13]

Notable reporting assignments

Awards
  • 2010 Suryadatta National Lifetime Award[16]
  • 2010 Indian News Broadcasting Award for Best Hindi News Show Host[12][17]

References
  1. "Channel Moves". The Hindu (Thiruvananthapuram). 17 June 2002. Retrieved 21 September 2012.
  2. "Business time with the PM". Hindustan Times. 17 January 2005.
  3. "India: Rising competition forces change in TV news treatment". The Telegraph (India). 27 January 2004.
  4. Yadav, Yogendra (27 June 2007). "When Hindi became telegenic". The Indian Express. Retrieved 26 September 2012.
  5. Pherwani, Seema (30 December 2005). "A Scribe to the Core". indiantelevision.com. Retrieved 25 September 2012.
  6. "Network18". Network18online.com. Archived from the original on 18 March 2013. Retrieved 10 September 2012.
  7. "Founding Members". Foundation for Media Professionals. Retrieved 25 September 2012.
  8. Khosla, Mukesh (16 June 2002). "Star reshuffle". The Sunday Tribune. Retrieved 21 September 2012.
  9. "Sanjay Pugalia joining TV18 as editor Hindi programming". Indiantelevision.com. 22 March 2004. Retrieved 10 September 2012.
  10. "Headhunters hunting jobs". Business India. 25 June 2001.
  11. Digest, Executive (31 May 2002). "Star appoints ZEE's Pugalia". The Times of India. Retrieved 21 September 2012.
  12. Pandey, Shikha (5 September 2010). "e4m INBA 2010: Industry honours the contributions of Kalanidhi Maran, Rajdeep Sardesai, G Krishnan, Barkha Dutt, Shazi Zaman, among others". exchange4media.com.
  13. "Finance Minister presents CNBC AWAAZ Consumer Awards 2010 for Indias Most Preferred Brands". Indiantelevision.com. 29 June 2010.
  14. Parvaz, D. (30 November 1999). "Media ready to go – with little protest to show". Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
  15. "CNBC Awaaz to Host 'Bihar Day' With Chief Minister Nitish Kumar". International Business Times. 12 September 2012. Retrieved 25 September 2012.
  16. "India on course to self reliance in energy". The Times of India. 8 September 2010. Retrieved 22 September 2012.
  17. "Network18 bags 5 top honours at INB awards". IBN live. 2 September 2010. Archived from the original on 3 January 2013. Retrieved 22 September 2012.
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