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Tag: IANS

  • Adani Group acquires IANS after NDTV, BQ Prime

    Adani Group acquires IANS after NDTV, BQ Prime

    Mumbai: Adani Group acquired the IANS wired news service agency as reported by PTI. Adani subsidiary AMG Media Network has taken control by purchasing a 50.5 per cent stake in IANS. Infrastructure conglomerate Adani Group now shifted its focus on Adani’s venture into the media business strategically. AMG Media Network subsidiary of Adani Group garnered a new feather in its cap after acquiring NDTV, a Quintillion Business news network (BQ Prime).

    As per regulatory filings, the Adani group acquired a stake of equity shares with an agreement with IANS and its shareholder Sandeep Bamzai. IANS (Indo-Asian News Service) is a network-wired news agency in India, South Asia, Africa, and North America. In the last decade, IANS shifted focus to the Indian news verticals.

    As filing mentioned , AMG media shareholders had signed an agreement with Sandeep Bamzai and IANS. In the financial year 2023, IANS had a turnover of around 11.86 crores. Despite the loss of 100 billion dollars due to short selling, the Hindenburg report stated irregularities in Adani’s financial irregularities.

    According to filings company management and control will be managed by AMG. Along with the right to appoint a board of directors. Allegedly IANS faced financial difficulty for day-to-day functioning. IANS media agency has more than 200 employees headquartered in New Delhi.

    Over the years Adani Group has diversified its portfolio into producing coal, energy distribution, mining, ports infrastructure, data centers, and more recently into cement and copper and now into media. The acquisition amount of IANS is not disclosed.

  • YouTube & Vimeo to stream record DD show, producers explore tieups with pvt channels

    MUMBAI: The record-breaking two-season-old cshow with 400 million viewership across the globe which questions gender discrimination and patriarchal attitude is now prepared to bring its stories to the digital media through a web series.

    Challenging regressive cultural and social norms around early marriage, family planning, domestic violence and sex selection, Population Foundation of India’s show has already set edutainment shows record by achieving the record total reach from telecast of 131 episodes and broadcasts on All India Radio FM stations.

    Population Foundation’s executive director Poonam Muttreja told IANS that they planned to develop and disseminate edutainment content from the show on digital media platforms as well as increase online viewership through YouTube and Vimeo. Population Foundation team has shortlisted 10 stories from the show’s field interventions in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh which was in-depth, either through direct outreach programmes or through calls received on the Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS).

    About season three, Muttreja said, they were engaged in a consultative process with a range of experts, stakeholders, and civil society organisations to prioritise the issues that need attention. She said they would be continuing their partnership with All India Radio and Doordarshan and also explore partnerships with private channels to telecast the show as the issues were relevant for the Indian society.

    Also Read :

    Which Indian show has 400m viewers across 50 countries?

  • Rohit Bansal exits TV18 board of directors

    Rohit Bansal exits TV18 board of directors

    MUMBAI: Rohit Bansal, one of the board of directors from the TV18 Broadcast Ltd has expressed his inability to continue with the company due to other commitments with effect from 1 May 2016. Bansal along with founder Raghav Bahl and others was appointed on board as an additional non-executive director on 14 January 2015.

    Bansal was the managing director at India TV and has also been a part of The Times Of India as a senior business correspondent. Prior to that, he worked with Zee News as business editor. He has also worked at TV18 as special correspondent earlier, and has been a columnist at The Pioneer, Governance Now, DNA and IANS.

    Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), which controls Network18 Media and Investments Ltd also has ownership on channels like CNBC-TV18, CNN-News18, IBN7 and websites like Moneycontrol.com,  firstpost.com, etc. 

  • Rohit Bansal exits TV18 board of directors

    Rohit Bansal exits TV18 board of directors

    MUMBAI: Rohit Bansal, one of the board of directors from the TV18 Broadcast Ltd has expressed his inability to continue with the company due to other commitments with effect from 1 May 2016. Bansal along with founder Raghav Bahl and others was appointed on board as an additional non-executive director on 14 January 2015.

    Bansal was the managing director at India TV and has also been a part of The Times Of India as a senior business correspondent. Prior to that, he worked with Zee News as business editor. He has also worked at TV18 as special correspondent earlier, and has been a columnist at The Pioneer, Governance Now, DNA and IANS.

    Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), which controls Network18 Media and Investments Ltd also has ownership on channels like CNBC-TV18, CNN-News18, IBN7 and websites like Moneycontrol.com,  firstpost.com, etc. 

  • Akshay to supervise Vidhyut for Commando 2

    Akshay to supervise Vidhyut for Commando 2

    MUMBAI: Director-producer Vipul shah who cast Vidhyut Jamwal in his recent movie Commando is now ready to make the sequel of the movie where action hero Akshay Kumar will supervise the newcomer.

    Shah who has already worked with the actor in four films – Aankhen, Waqt: The Race Against Time, Namastey London and Singh is Kinng. The director will collaborate with Kumar for Commando 2 as a consultant and advisor to supervise some of Jamwal‘s stunts.

    As reported in IANS Shah said, “According to me, Akshay is the best action hero in the country. He was the most excited when we started ‘Commando‘ with Vidyut and, in fact, we’d have liked Akshay to be more participative in ‘Commando’. However, he was too busy. But now in ‘Commando 2‘, we definitely intend to bring Akshay in.”

  • Mathrubhumi to invest Rs 500 mn in news and music channel

    Mathrubhumi to invest Rs 500 mn in news and music channel

    MUMBAI: Mathrubhumi TV, the television arm of Kerala’s Mathrubhumi Group, is planning to invest Rs 500 million in a Malayalam news channel and a multi-lingual music channel.

     

    Mathrubhumi News will launch on 23 January while Kappa TV, the music channel, will go on air from 1 February.

     

    The launch of these two channels will mark print major Mathrubhumi’s entry into Kerala’s competitive TV news broadcasting space dominated by News Corp-owned Asianet Communications, its print media competitor Manorama News, news agency IANS’ Reporter TV and India Vision News.
        

    Both the channels are free-to-air and have already secured carriage deals with most of the cable operators in the state including Asianet Cable Television, Kerala’s biggest multi-system operator (MSO). The company is also planning to launch the news channel in Gulf and in metro cities like Mumbai and Delhi.

     

    Mathrubhumi TV chief executive officer Mohan Nair, who has earlier worked with Asianet Communications as COO and Sri Lankan media conglomerate Maharaja Broadcasting Corporation as CEO, believes that the television foray is a natural extension for the Mathrubhumi Group as it has interests in print through leading Malayalam daily Mathrubhumi and in radio courtesy Club FM.

     

    “We had diversified into radio some years back and so we saw a rightful extension in television,” Nair says.

     

    Mathrubhumi TV, which is also into content production, is a subsidiary of Mathrubhumi Printing & Publishing Co. Ltd. (MPPCL).

     

    For 2010-11, MPPCL reported a net profit of Rs 300.4 million on net sales of Rs 3.89 billion. For the nine months ended 31 December, 2012, the company reported a net profit of Rs 238.6 million on net revenues of Rs 3.28 billion.

     

    The TV News foray

     

    Launching a news channel was a no-brainer for the Malayalam media company as it complements Mathrubhumi’s print media business. The 90-year-old Mathrubhumi newspaper is the flagship brand of the company and competes with Malayala Manorama which incidentally also runs a news channel, Manorama News.

     

    Nair, who has also served as the chief of bureau of Economic Times in Mumbai, believes that the news channel’s USP will be its HD technology, talented team of journalists, and independent coverage.

     

    The last bit is important as Kerala has political party backed news channels namely Congress’ Jaihind TV and CPI (M)’s People TV.

     

    “There are only four to five pure news channels in Kerala. Our USP is that we will be an independent news channel,” avers Nair.

     

    News broadcasters in Kerala, like in the rest of the country, are heavily dependent on ad revenue, which is estimated to be in the region of Rs 1 billion.

     

    The news channel will have Unni Krishnan as the Chief of News with a team of 250 journalists assisting him. Mathrubhumi News will have a bureau in every district of Kerala which will give it an edge in covering locally relevant issues.

     

    Outside Kerala, the channel will also have bureaus in Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai.

     

    Although news channels have a skew towards male audience, Mathrubhumi News will have programming that targets women and youth. “The idea is to have a complete news channel which offers something to everyone,” asserts Nair.

     

    The channel is being promoted primarily through Mathrubhumi’s print and radio platform apart from outdoor ads.

     

    Kappa TV to follow 9XM model

     

    The Mathrubhumi Group is also betting big on its speciality channel Kappa TV that will air music and humour content. The company will follow the 9XM model which has a mix of music and animated content.

     

    Kappa TV will air Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi and English songs in order to cater to the diverse taste of the state’s youth population.

     

    However, Malayalam music will continue to be the driver content for the channel. The channel is targeted at 18-35 age group.

     

    The Malayalam music genre currently has only two serious players in Asianet Plus and Raj Musix Malayalam.

     

    “With Kappa TV, we intend to bring elements of radio on television,” says Nair.

  • TV channels to face action for showing political ads after deadline

    TV channels to face action for showing political ads after deadline

    MUMBAI: Government has said that it will take action against television channels which are playing political advertisements despite campaigning coming to an end on 27 November.

    ‘We are starting the process of taking action against television channels. We will soon be sending notices to them and action would be taken against them,” the IANS report quoted Delhi chief electoral officer Satbir Silas Bedi as saying.

    Officials decided to take action against television channels when they noticed that many of them were airing ads of political parties even after the deadline for poll campaigning in Delhi was over at 5 pm on Thursday.

    Elections for the Delhi assembly will take place on 29 November.