ITV

Tag: Suparna Singh

  • Hathway Cable removes NDTV India from popular channel packs

    Hathway Cable removes NDTV India from popular channel packs

    Mumbai: Hindi news channel NDTV India has been removed from popular channel packs offered by cable TV operator Hathway Cable and Datacom, the channel has said.

    The channel tweeted the development on 3 September via its Twitter handle asking customers of the cable operator to call the customer service number and ask why NDTV India channel has been removed. It also asked them to tweet to the cable provider using their official Twitter handle.

    The call was taken up by NDTV Convergence, head, Suparna Singh and NDTV India, senior executive editor, Ravish Kumar. At the time of filing this report, the Twitter posts have gone viral garnering thousands of views, likes and retweets.

    The situation escalated further when Ravish Kumar shared a video clip that has been shared across NDTV’s social media handles.

     

     

     

     

    “Often TV News channels are removed from the channel packs citing operational bottlenecks. However, this matter is different,” said Kumar on his Prime Time Show. “There is a lot of effort that goes into preparing the programming for NDTV. This programme is not conjured out of thin air. The effort that goes into producing the primetime shows, there are thousands of words that are typed from the morning 7 a.m till the evening 10 p.m, which I do myself. We have a small team that puts in a lot of effort.”

     

     

    Kumar said it is not good when the programming that is created with so much effort is not able to reach the viewer because of the hurdles imposed by others. “We will continue to work. Today’s programme will not reach you. Yet, when history will look back, it will note that this was the only programme worth watching,” he said.

    On 4 September, Hathway Cable issued a statement, “The NDTV News channel is available for all Hathway Subscribers. Our customers can easily subscribe to the channel as per their requirements.” 

  • NDTV and CoinSwitch Kuber announce strategic content partnership

    NDTV and CoinSwitch Kuber announce strategic content partnership

    Mumbai: NDTV and CoinSwitch Kuber have announced a strategic partnership for content in the cryptocurrency space.

    The partnership will see NDTV launch exclusive crypto destinations on gadgets360.com, ndtvprofit.com, and ndtvindia.in and a brand-new show every alternate weekend on the TV news channels NDTV 24X7 and NDTV India.

    The cryptocurrencies trading market has gone mainstream. More people are evaluating this asset class and there is a demand for credible and accurate information, said the statement. “Through this partnership, CoinSwitch Kuber seeks to address this demand by combining its domain expertise with NDTV’s credibility,” it added.

    “All of us at NDTV are excited about this terrific new partnership with CoinSwitch Kuber. Cryptocurrency is a big and complex space to explore – and we will report on it with the rigor and credibility that NDTV is known for,” said NDTV Convergence head, Suparna Singh. “Our digital and on-air teams will work together to bring the latest cryptocurrency news and trends to an Indian audience. Young Indians are so invested in this space – and we look forward to giving them all the information they’re looking for, as also to engaging a broader audience that may not know much about this area but wants simple explainers and a clear picture of what has become a whole new way of trading.”

    “Crypto has seen exponential growth over the last decade, and the sentiment is only getting stronger,” said CoinSwitch Kuber co-founder and chief executive officer, Ashish Singhal. “Every day lakhs of users are becoming first-time crypto investors, both from metros as well as the remotest corners of the country. As India’s leading crypto investment platform, it is our responsibility to provide users access to relevant information regarding this asset class. NDTV being one of India’s leading media houses will help us get our message across to everyone – from beginners to seasoned investors.”

    The content will be available across all NDTV platforms including its massive social media communities.

  • NDTV interim CEO Suparna Singh resigns

    NDTV interim CEO Suparna Singh resigns

    MUMBAI: NDTV interim CEO Suparna Singh has resigned with immediate effect, the media firm informed in its BSE filings.

    “Suparna Singh has informed the company that she will step down from her responsibilities as Interim CEO with immediate effect,” NDTV said in a regulatory filing.

    “Pursuant to a board resolution on December 4, 2017, the board resolved to appoint Suparna Singh as its CEO subject to the receipt of requisite approval from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting,” said NDTV.

    The company further said, “This approval was promptly applied for on 12 December 2017, but has not yet been received. Subsequently, Suparna Singh and the company entered into an appointment agreement to appoint Singh as the CEO where the appointment was conditional upon receipt of such approval.”

    NDTV told PTI that the matter will be placed before the board and committee members for consideration.

  • NDTV, Taboola ink 5-year deal worth more than Rs 300 crores

    NDTV, Taboola ink 5-year deal worth more than Rs 300 crores

    MUMBAI: In the latest evidence of the unparalleled market leader position of NDTV Convergence, the company has struck an unprecedented five-year deal with Taboola, the world’s largest content discovery platform.   

    The five-year deal ties NDTV Convergence exclusively to Taboola and involves a minimum guarantee of more than INR 300 crores for NDTV Convergence, making it one of the largest deals not just for digital content but for the media space in its entirety.   

    “Like NDTV, Taboola operates with the user at the centre of its universe which is what makes this such a natural fit,” said NDTV Group CEO Suparna Singh. “Taboola’s energy and innovation allow us to enlarge our own goals; we share their pride and excitement in learning, redefining, and then recreating all over again.  And this deal proves that Brand NDTV remains unchallenged and the go-to for world-class companies.”  

    The new partnership is vastly north of the last NDTV-Taboola arrangement that lasted three years and was worth INR 100 crores based on traffic projections.   

    NDTV.com has 200 million uniques (source: Google Analytics, October 2018), making it India’s largest news website and the 23rd-largest in the world, ahead of Washington Post, Huffington Post and others (source: Similar Web, Unique Visitors for News and Media Category, October 2018).  

    This is the largest deal that Taboola has ever signed in the APAC region. Taboola uses its presence on sites like NDTV to recommend content from across the internet to the audience and to offer highly-personalized native advertising.  

    “The growth of the mobile internet in India is skyrocketing, and with over half a billion smartphone users, its mobile adoption is second only to China. Mobile users are continually looking for those “moments of next,” and publishers such as NDTV are well positioned to deliver a dynamic, personalized content experience to their readers,” said Taboola founder and CEO Adam Singolda. “We are humbled that NDTV, our oldest and largest partner in India, has made a long-term, five-year commitment to joint innovation in this most exciting market.”  

  • NDTV, Reliance’s Rafale case to be heard on 22 November

    NDTV, Reliance’s Rafale case to be heard on 22 November

    MUMBAI: NDTV has challenged the jurisdiction of the Ahmedabad court where Anil Ambani’s Reliance Group sued the news broadcaster for Rs 10,000 crores over the Rafale fighter jet deal and the next hearing will be on 22 November 2018. The first hearing was on 26 October. The lawsuit is filed against NDTV's weekly show, Truth vs Hype, which aired on 29 September.

    According to NDTV, “The role of Reliance appeared to have been questioned by none other than Francois Hollande, who was the president of France when the deal was struck. The NDTV show reported all sides of the story including Dassault's denial that it had been under any pressure to select Reliance. The panellists, in a balanced discussion, examined whether issues like Reliance's vast debt and record in defence manufacturing made it a suitable choice for Dassault in India.”

    NDTV Group CEO Suparna Singh tweeted on 26 October, “NDTV challenges jurisdiction of Ahmedabad court where Anil Ambani’s Reliance group sued us for Rs 10,000 crores over our Rafale deal coverage, next hearing on Nov 22.”

    Anil Ambani’s Reliance Group has filed a defamation suit of Rs 7,000 crore against founder and editor of ‘The Citizen’, Seema Mustafa, for its reportage on the defence deal and Rs 5,000 crore against National Herald in September, saying that one of its published articles on the Rafale deal was “libellous and derogatory”.

    Also, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had issued a show cause notice to NDTV in connection with a case of forex violation it is probing against the media company on 17 October 2018. The notice has been issued for violations of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) to the tune of Rs 4,000 crore.

  • Anil Ambani’s Reliance sues NDTV for Rs 10,000 cr

    Anil Ambani’s Reliance sues NDTV for Rs 10,000 cr

    MUMBAI: NDTV has been sued for Rs 10,000 crore by Anil Ambani's Reliance Group in an Ahmedabad court for its reportage on the Rafale fighter jet deal. The lawsuit is filed against NDTV's weekly show, Truth vs Hype, which aired on 29 September.

    The hearing has been listed for 26 October. NDTV Group CEO Suparna Singh tweeted on 18 October, “We will fight this brazen attempt to harassment and intimidation.”

    NDTV also mentioned that the top executives of Reliance ignored repeated, multiple and written requests to appear on the show or comment on what is being widely discussed not just in India but in France as well – whether Anil Ambani's Reliance was transparently chosen as the partner for Dassault in a deal that saw India buying 36 fighter jets.

    According to NDTV, “As the Rafale deal has become a larger news story in India, the Reliance group has been on a notice-serving spree; to sue a news company for Rs 10,000 crore in a court in Gujarat on false and frivolous charges, ignoring facts that are widely reported everywhere and not just by NDTV, can only be interpreted as an unsophisticated warning to the media to stop doing its job.”

    Also, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued a show cause notice to NDTV in connection with a case of forex violation it is probing against the media company on Wednesday. The notice has been issued for violations of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) to the tune of Rs 4,000 crore.

    NDTV rejected any allegations of violating FEMA regulations. NDTV said that it is being targeted for its fair and independent journalism and that its persecution is intended to signal to other media that unless they fall in line, they will face similar consequences.

  • NDTV launches India’s first mobile-only portrait live channel

    NDTV launches India’s first mobile-only portrait live channel

    MUMBAI: New Delhi Television Ltd (NDTV) has launched India’s first mobile-only vertical live channel with the name NDTV HOP Live. India has nearly 432 million internet users and this number is growing at a rate of 4-8 per cent, according to Deloitte’s Technology, Media and Telecommunication (TMT) prediction 2018- India edition. With the tremendous digital advances and ongoing smartphone revolution, NDTV HOP Live hopes to break the clutter of digital content and focuses on creating a young and energetic voice of the generation.

    NDTV group CEO Suparna Singh said, "NDTV is valued and recognised for creating and launching terrific new content in the online space. This partnership with Airtel allows us to use to dream potential the possibilities of digital and telecom technology. "We know younger users want great content on the small screen. This is original, made-from-scratch content for them, not replicated or ported from our other platforms. It's very exciting to be rolling this out at this time in India."

    The app has a mix of live shows and fast-paced features, it has ditched the horizontal view and has followed a more personal and focuses approach by adopting the vertical format. According to Counterpoint Research, a market research company, India will have more than a billion smartphone users in the next five years. The numbers of users will exceed 700 million by the year 2022.

    Currently, India is the second largest smartphone industry in the world with more than 400 million active users, after China.

    The app is available on Google Play store and IOS app store. It is also available exclusively on Airtel TV.

    Commenting on the partnership, Bharti Airtel CEO – content and apps, Sameer Batra said, "We are delighted to join hands with NDTV to launch India's first LIVE channel for smartphones. Today's tech-savvy millennial wants to consume digital content on the go and our tie-up with NDTV is aimed at facilitating just that. Our deep understanding of customer's content consumption preferences coupled with NDTV's expertise is sure to create an enjoyable experience for users."

  • NDTV puts top management in place

    NDTV puts top management in place

    MUMBAI: There’s top management restructuring at the troubled news broadcaster NDTV group. The company has been at the receiving end with the income tax authorities for the past few years following “unjustifiable’ tax claims being imposed on it. And rumours have been abounding about its acquisition by other parties.  Late October , the Securities Exchange Board of India cleared them of charges related to delayed financial results disclosures at the end of financial year 2011-2012.

    The vacuum at the top – following the passing away of CEO KVL Naryan Rao – has been filled. The Prannoy Roy-Radhika Roy promoted company has moved NDTV Convergence Ltd CEO Suparna Singh to the corner office, managing the entire group as of 4 December 2017. The company’s website says that she ” as been with NDTV for 25 years and has the highest-level experience in all aspects of NDTV functions: editorial in both broadcast TV and internet, revenue and cost management. She has helped NDTV create and run a major new property in NDTV Convergence, which is internationally recognised. It is and has always been a profitable venture.”

    The group’s director finance and group CFO Saurav Banerjee has been elevated to co-CEO. According to the NDTV website, “as part of his role as Co-CEO, Saurav works closely with the CEO in looking at operations and oversees financial planning, taxation, legal and compliances. Widely respected across the financial world, Saurav has been involved in raising finances, capital restructuring, mergers & acquisitions and statutory compliances with more than a decade of service with the company.”

    Ravi Asawa is stepping into his shoes as group CFO, NDTV. Ravi has rich experience in corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, treasury, corporate governance and financial processes across multiple knowledge domains like media, IT services, eCom and manufacturing industries. He is a finance professional with more than two decades of experience and has been the strategic backbone of the NDTV Group Finance team for more than nine years.

    The announcement was made to the Bombay stock exchange following the go-ahead at a board meeting earlier today.

    Also Read: http://www.indiantelevision.com/television/tv-channels/news-broadcasting/spicejets-ajay-singh-may-take-control-of-ndtv-170922

    http://www.indiantelevision.com/television/tv-channels/news-broadcasting/ndtv-profit-to-be-shut-down-to-move-business-finance-segments-on-ndtv-24×7-170602

    http://www.indiantelevision.com/television/tv-channels/people/ndtv-s-kvl-narayan-rao-passes-away-171120

    http://www.indiantelevision.com/television/tv-channels/people/obit-in-memory-of-kvl-narayan-rao-171121

    http://www.indiantelevision.com/television/tv-channels/news-broadcasting/ndtv-promoters-get-clean-by-sebi-chit-in-disclosure-case-171025

     

  • NDTV Convergence inks Rs 90 – 100 crore deal with Taboola

    NDTV Convergence inks Rs 90 – 100 crore deal with Taboola

    MUMBAI: NDTV’s digital arm NDTV Convergence has inked a partnership with content discovery platform Taboola. The companies have signed a three year deal, the worth of which is pegged in the range of Rs 90 – 100 crore ($13-15 million) based on traffic projections across web and mobile.

    NDTV Convergence’s partnership with Taboola will power content recommendations to its audience of over 60 million unique visitors. Taboola will serve as the exclusive, multi-platform content discovery partner across all its properties. In addition to providing advertisers with an option to now target the premium NDTV audience through native content marketing, Taboola will also work with NDTV to increase user engagement.

    NDTV group CEO and executive director Vikram Chandra said, “We are really happy to extend this partnership with Taboola who have been great partners over the last year. This truly is a landmark deal given its size and scale, making it the largest and one-of-its kinds in the Indian digital media eco-system.”

    NDTV Convergence CEO & managing editor Suparna Singh added, “We are always striving to provide our consumers with high-quality and the best possible content. When we started this journey, the web was a much simpler place. Today, as social media feeds continue to fragment the user base, we need to customise content based on user interest. As always, we aim to be on the cutting edge and this partnership also gives us a new and unique way to monetise our growing audience across platforms.”

    “It’s an incredible honour to work with such a highly respected global publisher as NDTV, and we look forward to working with Vikram, Suparna, and the entire NDTV editorial team in continuing to boost overall audience engagement and revenue. We see India as a massive opportunity for marketers to reach new audiences since so many citizens are accessing the Internet for the first time via mobile and this partnership is a testament to our commitment to providing Indians with high quality content they may like and never knew existed,” said Taboola CEO and founder Adam Singolda.

  • NDTV records highest traffic for Indian website on Election results day

    NDTV records highest traffic for Indian website on Election results day

    On May 16, on the counting day of the LokSabha Elections, NDTV.com set a new record for the highest traffic on an Indian website, on a single day.

     

    NDTV registered over 13 billion hits in a single day, as per Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leading cloud platform for media and content delivery to NDTV and almost all other media companies in the country.

     

    Speaking on this, Suparna Singh, Managing Editor and CEO, NDTV Convergence Limited said – “ndtv.com had committed to delivering the fastest results on air and online and we spent months gearing up for what we knew would be unprecedented traffic. Elections is in our DNA and we were determined to give Indian users a seamless, in-depth and complete experience.”

     

    Kawaljit Singh Bedi, Chief Technology Officer, NDTV Convergence, said, “We are committed to providing our viewers with real time information be it online or offline. For an event as big as the Election, it was important that our viewers had access to fast, real-time information. During the Election results, we received over 13 billion hits, the highest for any site on a single day in India, and we were able to provide exceptional site performance on web and mobile without any hindrance. This was possible with the support of Akamai as they absorbed 99% of our traffic on to the Akamai Intelligent Platform.”

     

    Sidharth Malik, Managing Director and Vice President, India, Akamai Technologies said “On May 16th, counting day for Indian elections, Indian News sites witnessed the highest ever internet traffic. NDTV partnered with Akamai on this day to provide reliable and scalable solutions to support this high traffic volume. We are happy to report that NDTV got over 13 billion hits across its digital properties that day, which is the highest ever traffic any Indian website has got on a single day.  We at Akamai technologies are very pleased to have played a part in providing NDTV with a scalable and robust infrastructure on such an important day for the company”

     

    NDTV also had new records being set for its digital properties including concurrent users hitting an all-time high of over 500,000 users as per Google Analytics. Some other single day statistics as per Google Analytics –

     

    · 11.6 million unique visitors across all platforms, the highest ever in a single day.

    · 117.7 million Pageviews across platforms, the highest single day ever

    · 19.6 million video streams with an average viewing time of about 9 minutes

    · Over 200000 concurrent users watching video on the website

     

    NDTV was also the number 1 app on iOS across all categories in India and the WAP site registered its all-time highest concurrent users further strengthening the group’s belief that India is going to be a Mobile first digital economy