ITV

Tag: TV news business

  • ‘A very good year for TV news business, with a huge upside for the industry’

    ‘A very good year for TV news business, with a huge upside for the industry’

    The year 2007 has been very, very good so far as business is concerned. We had all approached the year with certain things that we needed to do, and my organisation had decided to move to areas that go beyond news. So we went on a funding road show in March-April this year, collected the money we needed to for funding the verticals we wanted to develop and we have done so, getting into various aspects of media activity.

    In fact, if you look at NDTV Network story, in a sense this was the real media story of the country this year, with the six verticals that I run now, consequent to raising of the funding. One is NDTV Imagine, the GEC from our company, which we expect to launch from end-January 2008. And entertainment has endless possibilities, music, films, and so many other aspects.

    Then we have launched NDTV Lifestyle this year. This is our response to the economic changes and the increase in the size of the middle class and their spending habits, which are fast changing.

    Under the NDTV Networks umbrella we now have news, entertainment, lifestyle, technology solutions, setting up new projects
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    Today, you can walk into a mall in Saket (in the southern parts of New Delhi) and you can find Armani and other foreign and expensive brands. This was not the case even a year earlier. And there are people going to these places and buying these things. So we had targeted this niche audience, which believes in wellness and fitness and good living, health and happiness and so forth.

    The other business is NDTV Convergence, which is a leading Web 2.0 company with interests in developing exclusive content for cross media platforms such as the Internet, mobile phones and IPTV.

    We operate India’s no 1 television news website www.ndtv.com along with other leading verticals, namely, NDTV Profit, NDTV Jobs, NDTV Travels, NDTV Gadgets, NDTV Shopping and NDTV Commodities. Convergence is really a hot property, and we have developed a very good management team, which is by the way true for all our verticals.

    There is also another emerging trend, which is an MPO, a media processes outsourcing company. There are so many media companies that need to go digital, or have meta-tagging, or run specialised closed-captions, catering to audio-challenged and visually challenged persons. These companies need various solutions, so we have developed that vertical in a JV with Genpact and called the company N-gEN.

    We said that the industry will bring its own code, and fortunately, the government accepted that
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    We already had NDTV Labs, which deals with broadcast technology for ourselves, both software and hardware. We have been getting awards for these activities from Commonwealth Broadcasting Association and other agencies. We have people with 18 years of expertise in that field and so we decided that apart from producing these solutions for NDTV, this can become an independent business.

    Then there is NDTV Emerging Markets which will set up new projects, like we have done in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Middle East.

    So under the NDTV Networks umbrella we now have news, entertainment, lifestyle, technology solutions, setting up new projects. For me these are highly satisfactory developments. Broadly speaking, we have done everything that could be done in the realm of media, and I think many of us (other companies as well) have done likewise, which makes 2007 a very good business year.

    But yes, there have been a few contentious issues as well, like regulation, of which there are two broad aspects: the news content code and the Broadcast Regulation Bill.

    So far as the content code is concerned, let me try to be as objective as is possible. The government set up a committee to look at all components of the content code, and the committee including educationists, activists, watchdog kind of people, the media itself, the government officials and so on.

    But the when the code came out, it was simply not acceptable to us. For one thing, the committee had had just a single representative from the media, from the Indian Broadcasting Foundation. One must understand that the code was meant to regulate the news industry and it made no sense having just one person representing it. We were completely dominated by the ministerial majority. So we rejected it outright, because any code brought about by the government was not acceptable to us. We said that the industry will bring its own code, and fortunately, the government accepted that.

  • Star’s news partner ABP charts expansion plan

    Star’s news partner ABP charts expansion plan

    MUMBAI / NEW DELHI: The Rupert Murdoch-controlled Star’s news partner ABP Group is drawing up expansion plans envisaging niche news channels, film production and a sustainable online and mobile business model.

    The Kolkata-based media company is also said to be mulling hiving off its English newspaper The Telegraph into a separate company to be able to attract investments from financial institutions, both domestic and foreign.

    That a blueprint of business expansion by the group is being readied was confirmed to Indiantelevision.com by the Sarkar family-controlled ABP Group’s president Pramath Sinha.

    Asked about the Indian languages being considered for expanding existing TV news business, Sinha said, “We are currently exploring a number of options, but have not firmed up on any particular choices yet. Language options include English, Marathi and Gujarati, among others.”

    More importantly, he said that the ABP group was “examining the strength of some thematic niches (read TV channels)” where a final decision will be taken based on the “long term prospects” of each of these and after “discussions” with Star.

    Hong Kong-based Star group, News Corp’s pan-Asian venture, is a 26:74 joint venture partner with the ABP Group for owning and managing news channels in India. The JV is called Media Content & Communications Services Ltd (MCCS).

    Presently, MCCS runs the Hindi Star News and Bengali sibling Star Ananda, which is co-branded on the names of the two companies.

    The expansion plans were shared by Sinha in a lengthy presentation to senior colleagues last month where the basic refrain was that the ABP Group can aim to emerge as the Time Warner of India, straddling various segments of the media and entertainment industry.

    When Sinha was asked by Indiantelevision.com whether the company was also looking at foraying into the entertainment side of TV business, he did not deny it outright. “Our core competence is in the realm of information TV and that will be our first priority. However, we are open to exploring other options in consultation with our partner, Star TV,” he said.

    Though, according to Sinha, it was “too early to comment” on forays in film production, he admitted, “(We’re) still examining whether it makes sense.”

    Will the group look at acquiring an existing film production house or set up an entity for this? Sinha replied, “We are open to both approaches in all our businesses.”

    Apart from these, the group is likely to start its FM radio operations in the second half of 2006, having bagged a licence for Kolkata through Ananda Offset, a group company.

    Print medium and online plans

    The ABP Group, which owns Ananda Bazaar Patrika, the largest circulated Bengali daily, and The Telegraph, the largest circulated English daily, in West Bengal, is looking at expanding existing business operations to leverage new technologies.

    Having launched a WAP edition of The Telegraph in August 2004, the group is bullish on doing the same with its other media products to make the online and mobile business sustainable.

    “Given the tremendous growth in mobile subscribers, we are very committed to offering value to our readers, viewers, and listeners through this medium. All our brands are or will rapidly become mobile-friendly,” Sinha says.

    The business model would range from revenue sharing (with telecom companies) to advertising to simple subscription, Sinha explains, adding that at this point all this is more of an “essential component” of offline offerings, which complements the traditional delivery channels.

    Still, what has excited many ABP doyens and senior journalists are talks about The Telegraph being hived off into a separate company, attracting funding from financial institutions for expansion and giving the newspaper a more national look with editions from places outside West Bengal.

    The possibility of publishing The Telegraph from Delhi and Mumbai has been debated within the group for over a decade. However, dwelling on hiving off The Telegraph from ABP, in true corporate style Sinha said, “This is speculative and I have no comment.”

    In the mid-1990s, the ABP Group had hived off its business newspaper Business Standard into a separate entity and finally sold it off to Kotak Mahindra, primarily a financial and banking company. Presently, London’s Financial Times holds approximately 14 per cent equity stake in Business Standard Ltd.

    But what about investments to fund expansion plans aimed at monetizing existing and proposed services and products? “Cannot comment,” Sinha cryptically says.

    As an afterthought, he adds, “In today’s day and age, this question (on quantum of investment) is irrelevant. There are enough resources and more than enough opportunities. The critical issue is having the right people to make (the) stuff happen. I believe we have an excellent team in place to achieve our goals.”

    The ABP Group owns and publishes the likes of Ananda Bazaar Patrika, The Telegraph, business weekly Businessworld, Bengali literally and women’s magazine Desh and Sananda, respectively, apart from a kids’ magazine.
    A snapshot of the portal www.anandautsav.com

    It also has business interests in MCCS, anandautsav.com and Heyya, which is a mobile internet portal. Does that make ABP ready don the mantle of the Time Warner of India?

    “Who would not want to be that? It is great that you think us worthy of the question. But why not? We have a great starting point,” Sinha exults.

    He adds, “First, we are one of the oldest groups in the country – several (media) companies of our vintage have gone extinct over the years. Second, we are one of the largest in terms of size, not just in print, but across media and entertainment we would be clearly among the top 10 in the country. Third, and most importantly, we are the most diverse — from dailies to TV, from radio to WAP.

    “And, our diversity is not for diversity’s sake alone. Each of our properties are the leading ones in their genre. That is a great starting point that only we can claim.”

    Time will only tell whether promoter Aveek Sarkar’s patronage and Sinha’s business acumen combine to make dreams into full blown realities.