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Tag: Mathrubhumi Group

  • Mathrubhumi News makes near accurate post-poll predictions in Kerala

    Mathrubhumi News makes near accurate post-poll predictions in Kerala

    NEW DELHI: The legislative assembly election results in Kerala were declared on 2 May, and the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) created history by procuring 99 of the total 140 seats, beating anti-incumbency to return to power; the opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) had to settle for the remaining 41 seats while BJP was left empty-handed.

    Prior to the election results, several Malayalam channels had broadcast their post-poll predictions, and Mathrubhumi News has emerged as the only Malayalam channel which managed to predict the mood of the people of Kerala almost perfectly. 

    The 98-year-old media group predicted 104 to 120 seats for LDF and 20 to 36 seats for UDF. Interestingly, Mathrubhumi also predicted that BJP will get 0 to 2 seats in God’s own country. 

    “Everything had to be right if we were to put out a prediction, right from choosing the agency, Axis My India, to agreeing on a statistically valid sample size and the methodology including the various groups’ representation on the research,” said Mathrubhumi managing director MV Shreyams Kumar. “While we had other options, what we preferred was face-to-face interactions with the voters. When the final numbers came out, we had no hesitation in making a bold proclamation of our finding as we knew we got the voters sentiments clearly etched on our research sheets.”

    The media group’s had made a bulls-eye election prediction during the 2016 Kerala assembly polls too.

  • #Throwback2020: Top promotions in the Indian news industry

    #Throwback2020: Top promotions in the Indian news industry

    NEW DELHI: While 2020 was marked by many highs and lows for the Indian news industry, some newspersons’ star only rose.Here’s the second part of the year-end series on people’s movements in the Indian news industry,focusing on top-rank promotions within the organisations and those who took on additional charges. 

    India Today

    Dinesh Bhatia was elevated to CEO of India Today Group. He was earlier the group CFO. 

    Mail Today deputy editor Darpan Singh was named the executive editor for Indiatoday.in. The announcement came after India Today announced the closureofMail Today’s print edition.

    Rahul Shaw was promoted to the post of CEO – TV and radio, Salil Kumar to CEO – digital, KR Arora to COO – distribution and international, and Yatendra Tyagi was made TVTN CFO. Manoj Sharma took on the new responsibilityof CEO – magazines, LMI. 

    India TV

    In its decision “to rethink, rework, and retool” its business strategies, India TV announced promotions for four of its key persons looking after business revenue, corporate affairs, television operations, and growth and monetisation aspects. 

    Sudipto Chowdhury was elevated to chief revenue officer, Puneet Tandon as chief officer – corporate affairs, Rohit Lal as chief officer – television operations, and Gulab Makhija,  in addition to his role of CFO, was given the portfolio of CEO for growth and monetisation. 

    Mathrubhumi Group

    After the demise of late chairman and managing director MP Veerendra Kumar, Mathrubhumi Board elected PV Chandran as chairman and MV Shreyams Kumar as managing director. PV Chandran also continues to function as the whole-time director and managing editor.

    PV Chandran

    PV Gangadharan, erstwhile director, was appointed as the whole-time director and Mayura MS was tapped as a whole-time additional director of the company. 
    Mathrubhumi also announced the elevation of Naveen Sreenivasan as head media solutions TRD (television, radio, anddigital). 

    Network18

    Firstpost business head – English news cluster Azim Lalani was elevated as COO – brand solutions and convergence for Network18 digital. He was also given the additional charge of branded content for CNN-News18. Kishore Ajwani was given the post of managing editor from deputy managing editor. 

    Smriti Mehra was promoted from the post of COO – business news to CEO – business news cluster. She is now responsible for the P&L of this cluster and CNBC digital. Additionally, News18 Languages product function Sudipto Nandy was tapped as News18.com product head – general news. 

    Karthik Subbaraman was appointed the managing editor for the network’s digital news operations. Prior to this, Subbaraman was the editor overseeing three southern channels, a responsibility he passed on to Vivek Narayan.

    Karthik Subbaraman

    Preeti Sahni was handed the charge of COO – Forbes India; Siddharth Saini shouldered the responsibility of handling English news, business news and Forbes verticals, as well as international business. 

    The Hindu Group

    Malini Parthasarathy was named the chairperson of the board of directors. She took over the reins from N Ram, who stepped down from the position at the age of 75. Prior to this, Parthasarathy had been the co-chairperson.

    Additionally, publisher of The Hindu Group’s various newspapers N Ravi was elected as the chairperson of Kasturi & Sons Ltd. 

    The New Indian Express

    The publisher promoted VP – marketing and digital operations Amitabh Bishnoi to VP for digital properties. 

    The Quint

    The Quint announced the elevation of national revenue head Devika Dayalto the position of its chief revenue officer in September this year. 

    Times Network

    Times Network president – strategy and business head – English entertainment cluster Vivek Shrivastava was given the additional charge of the network’s news business. In addition to Movies Now, Romedy Now, MN+, MNX, the news channels Times Now, ET Now and Mirror Now were added to his portfolio.

    Vivek Shrivastava

    TV9 Network

    TV9 Network strengthened its management team by promoting president Vikram K as COO – south. He will be driving the group’s flagship channels TV9 Telugu and TV9 Kannada. It also announced the appointment of Raktim Das as COO – Studio 9.

    Republic Media Network

    Group president Bhaskar Das was elevated to chief strategy officer. Group CFO S Sundaram was given additional responsibility as group president. Hersh Bhandari and Priya Mukherjee were also tapped as COOs.
     

  • Mathrubhumi Group elevates Naveen Sreenivasan to head media solutions TRD

    Mathrubhumi Group elevates Naveen Sreenivasan to head media solutions TRD

    Kochi: Mathrubhumi elevates Naveen Sreenivisan as head media solutions TRD. In his new role, Naveen will be responsible for the management of sales and marketing functions of Mathrubhumi News Television Channel, Kappa TV, Club FM, and Mathrubhumi Digital.

    Naveen Sreenivasan said, “I am really excited to take on this responsibility. While the situation is challenging, we have a great team which is geared up to face it head on. Further, as a media group, we have always deeply connected with the social fabric of Kerala and have enjoyed the trust of Malayalees, which will help us in being the partner of choice for brands; for marketing/media solutions in Kerala.”

    An IIM Lucknow alumnus with extensive experience across industries and domains, in his earlier appointment with the group, Naveen was heading as a cluster head sales for Mathrubhumi daily and is credited with generating new innovative ideas and sales driven activities for the company. He will report to Mathrubhumi Group MD M V Shreyams Kumar.

  • Mathrubhumi Group delivers exceptional performance during Onam 2020

    Mathrubhumi Group delivers exceptional performance during Onam 2020

    This year, with the ongoing pandemic and other calamities that has been plaguing the State, Onam was in the vicinity too.  The team from Kerala’s formidable media group Mathrubhumi decided nothing is enough to stop them and created history by roping in more than 1000 advertisers on board out of which 200 plus were local traders of Kerala who exclusively advertised in Mathrubhumi.  Their words in the video below are resounding testimonials to the response Mathrubhumi generates.  

    -Video -advertisers testimonials.mp4

    The group also released another video to raise a toast to its heroes and express its gratitude to all the advertisers.  Both the internal team and the advertisers have received this very warmly.

    -Video- Onam success 1.mp4

    Mr M V Shreyams Kumar, Managing Director, Mathrubhumi Group,  said “I have always believed that every crisis is an opportunity. This, solely led by our enthusiastic and hardworking team also talks about the immense confidence and trust the advertisers have on us. Onam 2020 success story is also a recognition of the brand values and reader/viewer/listener connect Mathrubhumi group enjoys”

  • Mathrubhumi Group MD MV Shreyams wins Rajya Sabha by-poll in Kerala

    Mathrubhumi Group MD MV Shreyams wins Rajya Sabha by-poll in Kerala

    NEW DELHI: Mathrubhumi Group MD MV Shreyams Kumar sailed to victory in the by-poll held for one vacant Rajya Sabha seat from Kerala. The voting was held at the Assembly building during its one-day session. 

    A two-time legislator, Shreyams Kumar won the Rajya Sabha seat held by his late father, MP Veerendra Kumar. The death of the 84-year-old media baron on May 28 had necessitated the by-poll. 

    Shreyams Kumar also dons the roles of Kerala Regional Committee chairman of Indian Newspaper Society, VP of News Broadcasters Association, and global vice president of International Advertising Association. 

  • 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.