Once upon a time there was only Deccan Herald & a few others. For most of us who had to know anything that is happening in Bangalore we would either have to wait for the newspaper the next morning or switch on to the 7.30 regional news on Doordarshan. Needless to say a lot has changed since.

Today we have a 24 hour dedicated Kannada news channel, multiple newspapers (both current affairs & business & the tabloid type as well) & the latest entrant is the city based magazines. Of course current affairs magazines have been in existence for a while & have been widely circulated as well in Bangalore. But what is new are the city based magazines. Some of the prominent ones I have laid my hands on include 080, India Today Simply Bangalore – largely distributed with the main magazine & the latest entrant Bengaluru Pages. Probably there is more. (If yes do write in about the others).

All these magazines are not current affairs magazines. So one is not likely to find our politicians on the cover page of any of these magazines unless they have something to do with a story on lifestyle, personal style, gadgets, culture or other such related light stuff.

My favorite among all these city specific magazines is Simply Bangalore. The quality of their content is fabulous & is truly a light read. Be it updates on the new entrants in Bangalore, the niche areas to shop/buy or some of the things people are doing in Bangalore. It is truly a wonderful compilation. There seems to ooze a certain culture out of Simply Bangalore. Bengaluru Pages out with its second edition recently is good but too early to judge its content. The one issue I happened to lay my hands on didn’t seem to have anything that is not already there say in Bangalore Times, the metro areas only supplement of Times of India. 080 is glossy & doesn’t restrict its content to Bangalore. There are a lot of general things in it as well.

With NDTV launching a city specific TV channel for Delhi called metronation, it is about time that Bangalore got one as well. And to me going on the basis of the content of NDTV Good Times (being in Bangalore have no knowledge of how Metronation is) feel they are the best bet to start something about Bangalore. Also in order would be a city specific radio station that is beyond songs. Some nice discussions on the city, its problems, profiling prominent people would be nicely received here.