NDTV
New Delhi Television Ltd is an Indian news media company focusing on broadcast and digital news publication. The company is considered to be a legacy brand that pioneered independent news broadcasting in India, and is credited for launching the first 24x7 news channel and the first lifestyle channel in the country. It owns and operates the broadcast news channels of NDTV India and NDTV 24x7. The two channels of the company have received 32 Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards.
This article is about the company. For the news channels owned by the company, see NDTV India and NDTV 24x7.Company type
1984
Adani Group (64.71%)
NDTV was founded in 1984, by economist Prannoy Roy and journalist Radhika Roy, a husband and wife duo from the city of Kolkata. It began as a production house for news segments, contracted by the public broadcaster Doordarshan and international satellite channels when television broadcasting was a state monopoly, and transitioned into the first independent news network in India. The company launched the first 24x7 news channel in partnership with Star India in 1998.
Between 1998 and 2003, NDTV was in an exclusive agreement with Star India to produce all of their news segments. In 2003, it became an independent broadcasting network with the simultaneous launch of the Hindi and English language news channels known as NDTV India and NDTV 24x7. It also launched a business news channel NDTV Profit which was later converted into an information and entertainment channel NDTV Prime. The company has had business interests in general entertainment and e-commerce, and is part of the management of a number of broadcast channels including the lifestyle channel NDTV Good Times, the infotainment channel Astro Awani and the news channel Independent Television through various joint ventures.
History
1984–1998: Doordarshan era
In 1984, the journalist Radhika Roy and her economist husband Prannoy Roy founded New Delhi Television.[2] The company began operation as a production house of news segments for the public broadcaster Doordarshan and international satellite news channels.[3] It was converted into a commercial news network in 1988,[2] and became the first independent television news network in India.[4] Doordarshan allotted a slot to the network to air a weekly broadcast called The World This Week, a news magazine programme that was commissioned by the director general of the public broadcaster, Bhaskar Ghose and covered international news.[4] The weekly news bulletin was described as an instant hit among its Indian viewers.[5]
The network was then contracted by Doordarshan to produce its coverage of the Indian general elections and budget session specials which too became widely popular.[2] The first election result telecast produced by NDTV was that of the 1989 Indian general election, which was also the first televised live coverage of an election result in India,[4][5] it employed hot-lines across the country and featured visual graphics, discussions and debates. The format developed by NDTV was contrasted with the simple official announcements publicised by Doordarshan in previous elections and was adopted as a template by news broadcasters over the following decades.[2][4] The terms of agreement between Doordarshan and NDTV were modified in the same year and the company began paying a fee for its weekly slot instead of being a contractor under the public broadcaster.[4] During the initial years, there was a delay of 10 minutes between telecast and production of live news due to government regulations, which later shifted to five minutes.[6]
The World This Week continued to be aired till 1995.[4] It was aired on Fridays at 10:00 pm,[7] and was described as "the only India-based programme which looked out at the rest of the world".[8] In 1993, CNN began collaborating with NDTV to produce select coverage for the weekly news bulletin.[9] The weekly was the first privately produced news bulletin in India,[5] and became one of the top rated programmes on Doordarshan.[9] According to Prannoy Roy, it was not difficult to appear good in comparison to Doordarshan which he described as more radio than television and that they were aided by the time period being most "newsiest" in television history.[10] The news bulletin covered a number of major events such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the Dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Breakup of Yugoslavia,[7][11] some of which were covered live from the respective countries by NDTV.[7]
In 1995, NDTV presented a proposal to Doordarshan to move its production to a daily half hourly news bulletin on the second Doordarshan channel DD Metro.[6] The proposal was accepted and the news bulletin called News Tonight was launched.[4][6] The Roys approached five major Indian business houses for investments and secured agreements with all five of them,[6] including the multinational Tata Group.[11] The bulletin was the first daily domestic news broadcast in the country.[12] The company also began producing shows such as The News Hour and Good Morning India for Doordarshan.[13] Prannoy Roy was the anchor of the NDTV news bulletins,[14] who in the process acquired a reputation for reliable, authentic and sophisticated news reporting. The news bulletins had gained both in credibility and were competing with entertainment channels in terms of viewership, which made the network sought after for partnerships by international news networks such as BBC and Rupert Murdoch's Star Network at a time when restrictions on private participation in television broadcasting were being lifted and Doordarshan's monopoly broken by satellite television.[5]
In 1997, the director general of Doordarshan, Rathikant Basu left the public broadcaster and joined its multinational rival, the Star Network. The resignation brought about a call for scrutinising his activities during his tenure as the director general,[5] a parliamentary committee was assigned to examine the finances of Doordarshan, which alleged "irregularities" in its dealings with NDTV.[4] On 20 January 1998, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a number of cases against the former director general, five other officials of the public broadcaster and against Prannoy Roy who was the managing director of NDTV.[15] The cases went on for several years in the form of a protracted dispute,[5] until CBI filed a closure report in 2013 and the charges were quashed by the Delhi High Court,[4] with the verdict that there was no evidence of wrongdoing.[5]
1998–2003: Rupert Murdoch and Star News
In 1998, NDTV entered into five-year contract with Rupert Murdoch's Star Network. Under the terms of the agreement, NDTV would produce all news content for the network,[5] while News Television India (subsidiary of Murdoch's News Corporation) would finance the endeavor.[16] The CEO of Star India had stated that NDTV was an obvious choice for a partnership due its recognition and infrastructure.[11] Star News was launched in February 1998 and was the first independent 24x7 news channel in India.[16] It was a bilingual channel and aired both Hindi and English language programs.[17] NDTV productions were also slotted on two 9:00 pm news bulletins in the channels of Star Plus and Star World.[18] In 1999, NDTV launched its own news website called ndtv.com which streamed live webcasts of its productions and generated 55,000 daily views within a month of its launch. Over the following years, it also made its first foray into regional markets and began a Tamil language news bulletin on Vijay TV, a channel owned by the Star Network.[3]
Star News was an immediate success, its revenue made the channel break-even at the onset.[19] Star India was also able to capitalise on the experience gained in NDTV's earlier collaboration with CNN,[9] one of its multinational competitors.[20] The financial support provided by the multinational gave the channel an advantage over its emerging competitors such as Aaj Tak, the Hindi language channel founded by Living Media.[4] Prannoy Roy remained as the face of the network while Radhika Roy,[5] who was known for being low profile,[21] operated the editorial process and reportedly demanded high standards for credibility, impartiality and independence.[5] The channel developed sophisticated production values and a reputation for journalistic integrity.[22] In a study conducted with Indian journalists, Star News was found to be perceived as the most professionally produced among Indian networks and was regularly viewed by a majority of journalists alongside Doordarshan and BBC World.[20]
In the partnership, NDTV was given editorial independence,[22] and produced the entire editorial content including in its packaging and presentation.[23] It was noted that the channel occasionally used its own branded equipment such as microphones with NDTV imprints, without any dispute. Under the agreement, the profits belonged to Star News and NDTV was paid a fee which began with US$10 million under an escalation clause and reserved intellectual property rights over its productions. This arrangement reportedly became an issue of contention between the sales team of Star India which were under pressure to generate revenues and NDTV which intended to maintain in its editorial independence.[19] In 2000, the NDTV news bulletin on Star Plus was removed, which was speculated to have been a signifier of the closeted conflict.[18]
In an anecdotal testimony, Peter Mukerjea who was CEO of Star India between 1999 and 2007, states that an advertiser with the network who was the chairman of a major textile company had complained to him about a news report about environmental issues in a town which operated one of their plants and held Star India responsible for the reporters not taking into account the views of the company.[19] Star News covered the 2002 Gujarat riots with investigative reports, in-depth analyses and live reporting of events.[6] The channel's coverage resulted in it being blacked out for a day by the Gujarat Government under Narendra Modi. The censorship came a day after the Minister of Law, Arun Jaitley had accused "some networks" of conspiracy against the government on a live telecast of Zee News,[6] a network that had assured him that they were not such networks on the same telecast.[24]
In 2002, Star was willing to continue the contract but without complete editorial control being granted to NDTV which was unacceptable to the Roys.[11] In the end, the negotiations between NDTV and Star India fell apart and the contract was not renewed. NDTV kept producing news segments for Star News till 31 March 2003.[22] The company's unwillingness to succumb to government pressure or pro right wing editorial intervention from Rupert Murdoch, cemented his decision to exit the partnership as well.[25] Murdoch went on secure a partnership with the Anandabazar Patrika Group for Star News, which was converted into a Hindi language news channel,[22][26] and was noted to have become far less critical in its news coverage following the transition.[25]
2003–2007: Independent broadcasting network
Following the end of the partnership with Star India, NDTV began its venture as an independent broadcaster. The company had acquired equity capital from investment banks including Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.[5] Standard Chartered invested US$12 million and acquired a share of 12% in the company. Media commentators at the time had speculated that Star News would remain the market leader and decimate NDTV.[27] Before the launch of the network's independent channels under its own brand, it had invested US$25 million into advertising.[22] For distribution, it entered into a tie up with the network of One Alliance, a joint venture between Sony and Discovery, Inc.[3][28]
NDTV launched two channels NDTV India and NDTV 24x7 in 2003. NDTV India was a Hindi language news channel and NDTV 24x7 was an English language news channel.[26] Soon after its launch NDTV 24x7 became the frontrunner in the English news segment,[5] while NDTV India had the second-highest viewership following Aaj Tak in the Hindi language segment, which pushed Star News to the place of fourth highest viewership in the process.[27] The channels introduced the concept of "break away" broadcasting in India with integrated receiver decoder (IRD) which could provide segmented region or city-specific news and with optional local language dubbings to viewers of the same channel.[3] In 2004, NDTV became a publicly traded company and the board members reportedly included N. R. Narayana Murthy, the founder of Infosys and Tarun Das, the chief mentor of the Confederation of Indian Industry as independent directors.[5] In December 2004, it stood as the media company with the highest market capitalisation, at a valuation of ₹1,433 crore (equivalent to ₹51 billion or US$640 million in 2023).[29]
The network was successful in pursuing a strategy of promoting anchors as TV stars in an attempt to both consolidate its brand name and as an incentive for drawing and retaining a talent pool of journalists. Some of their journalists eventually started branching out to begin their own ventures,[5] and a number of top executive employees left the network, including both the managing editor Rajdeep Sardesai and the chief financial officer Sameer Manchanda who left the network to join hands with the entrepreneur Raghav Bahl, who went on to launch CNN IBN. The resignations reportedly caused a number of problems for the network, the morale in the newsroom dipped and the network began finding it difficult to remain on top with an emergence of a crowded market with high competition as newer channels had more room for experimentation. Manchanda's resignation made the company's advertisers, the primary source of revenue to become vulnerable as the network which was solely in news broadcasting did not have extensive connections unlike others in the industry.[4]
Corporate affairs
Ownership
Till August 2022, the co-founders, journalist Radhika Roy and economist Prannoy Roy, the promoters of the company and had a controlling stake of 61.45%;[126] individually holding 16.32% and 15.95% of the shares respectively, and jointly holding an additional 29.18% through a holding company called RRPR.[127]
Among other shareholders are the Mauritius based LTS Investment Fund and Vikasa India EIF I Fund which hold 9.75% and 4.42% respectively.[128] Both the companies have links to the Adani Group,[129] LTS Investment Fund in particular has investments worth ₹19,328 crore (US$2.4 billion) in 13 Indian companies of which 4 belong to the Adani Group and the investments in these 4 constitute around 98% of their total investments, worth ₹18,916.7 crore (US$2.4 billion).[129][128]
NDTV is noted for its stock options available to its employees and a consequent high distribution of wealth among its employees,[5] with around 24.4% of the shares are owned through individual shareholdings of 1% or less in 2019.[130] In 2022, the small shareholding comprised 23.85% were divided among 29,691 individuals and 947 entities.[128] Four of these entities were Drolia Agencies, GRD Securities, Adesh Broking and Confirm Rebuild, which had interlinked directors and collectively held 7.11%.[129]
In December 2022, Prannoy and Radhika Roy sold 27.26 per cent out of their 32.26 per cent shareholding in the news network to the Adani Group, which till then had over a 37% stake in the media company, making the conglomerate, the single largest shareholder with over 64.71 per cent stake.[94]
Corporate governance and culture
The two founders are designated as the executive co-chairpersons of the company,[131] and a number of vice co-chairpersons have been appointed as the chief executive officer (CEO) from time to time. K. V. L. Narayan Rao was the CEO of the company between 2007 and 2013, followed by Vikram Chandra whose tenure ended in 2016 and Rao was re-appointed until his death in 2017.[132][133] Suparna Singh was appointed as an interim CEO and resigned in 2019.[134] On 27 March 2023, Adani appointed former SEBI chairman U. K. Sinha and Welspun India CEO Dipali Goenka as independent directors for a two year term. Sinha was also designated as Non-Executive Chairman of the Board.[135]
NDTV was one of the first companies in India to make an independent foray in the media industry.[136] The company was founded at a time when a few private operators were permitted on the official broadcast channels,[137] and initially recruited journalists with bureaucratic connections.[130] It eventually developed collegial newsrooms,[11] and began offering greater benefits in an attempt to recruit and retain a pool of talented journalists.[4][5] For a period, the newsrooms had acquired the moniker of "Roys boys" at a time when Prannoy Roy used to be the anchor and would refer to his colleagues as a "family" which is described by some of his former staff to have been broken when the editor-in-chief Rajdeep Sardesai resigned after the company went public.[4] The newsrooms themselves were stewarded by Radhika Roy since the inception, who is described to have been incessant on maintaining a high standard for its editorial output, in the process instituting a code of conduct for journalistic ethics.[5][138]
Since the inception of the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards, the journalists of the company's news channels have been the recipient one or more award every single year with the exception of 2013 and 2018, collectively winning 32 individual awards across various categories.[139] It also has a high employee retention rate, with 28% of the workforce having been employed in it for over 10 years, considered to be unprecedented in the electronic media industry, which has an average service period of less than four years.[5] Due to a number of notable broadcast journalists and media executives of various other companies emerging from employment under NDTV,[4][5] the company has acquired a reputation of being a "training ground" for television broadcasting in India.[5][140]
