India TV that has been in existence for two years now is gearing up to launch its website indiatvnews.com very soon. Till now the beta version of the site was available. The final version of the site will be up and running by the first week of March.

When asked to explain the reason for taking so long to move up from the beta version and launch the final one, all its CEO Chintamani Rao would say was “it is not a core activity for us”.

It is still not known as to who is going to head the web initiative, as the team is being set up. Elaborating more on indiatvnews.com, Rao said, “It is not a general news site that comes from us. There are plenty of news sites and we are not going to compete with those. It will be India TV on the web; we’ll offer live streaming and access to archives. Live streaming is on the Jump TV platform (www.jumptv.com), and archives directly from India TV.” However, he refused to comment on the revenue that the dotcom business would contribute.

The channel has recently decided to hike its ad rates by 50 percent from April. On the responses from the advertisers, Rao said, “No one likes price increase, but as long as you deliver value there is no issue.”