Network18 Media & Investments Limited, (

d/b/a A trade name, trading name, or business name is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is fictitious business name. Registering the fictitious name with ...

Network18 Group) is an Indian

media conglomerate A media conglomerate, media company, media group, or media institution is a company that owns numerous companies involved in mass media enterprises, such as music, television, radio, publishing, motion pictures, video games, amusement parks, or ...

owned by the

Reliance Industries Reliance Industries Limited is an Indian multinational conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai. Its businesses include energy, petrochemicals, natural gas, retail, entertainment, telecommunications, mass media, and textiles. Reliance is the ...

, headed by

Mukesh Ambani Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani (born 19 April 1957) is an Indian billionaire and businessman who is the chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries. As of May 2025, he is the richest person in Asia and The World's Billionaires, 13th richest ...

. Rahul Joshi is the managing director,

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

and group

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The editor-in-chief heads all departments of the organization and is held accoun ...

, and Adil Zainulbhai is the chairman of its board of directors. Through its subsidiaries and franchise licensing agreements, the group owns and operates the news broadcasting networks of News18, and CNBC channels in India, the magazines of ''

Forbes India ''Forbes India'' is the Indian edition of ''Forbes'', which is managed by the Reliance Industries-owned media conglomerate, Network 18. History and profile Since its founding in 2008, ''Forbes India'' has achieved a circulation of 50,000 copies ...

'' and '' Overdrive'', the websites of ''Firstpost'' and ''

Moneycontrol Network18 Media & Investments Limited, ( d/b/a Network18 Group) is an Indian media conglomerate owned by the Reliance Industries, headed by Mukesh Ambani. Rahul Joshi is the managing director, chief executive officer and group editor-in-chief, ...

,''. It also operates the television networks of

Colors TV Colors TV is an Indian general entertainment pay television channel owned by JioStar, a joint venture between Viacom18 and Disney India. Its programming consists of Soap opera, family dramas, Comedy, comedies, fantasy shows, youth-oriented Rea ...

Nickelodeon India Nickelodeon (abbreviated as Nick) is an Indian children's pay television channel based in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It is the Indian equivalent of the original American network and is owned by JioStar, a joint venture between Disney India a ...

MTV India MTV is an Indian pay television channel specialising in music, reality and youth culture programming. It was launched in 1996 as the Indian version of the original American network and is owned by JioStar, under a license agreement with Par ...

and the channel

History TV18 History TV18 (formerly known as The History Channel) is a television channel in India. It broadcasts infotainment and documentary shows. It is owned by a joint venture between A&E Networks, owner of the American History Channel, and Network18 ...

. Incorporated in 1996 by Geeta and Rakesh Gupta, the company was acquired by

Ritu Kapur Ritu Kapur is an Indian media entrepreneur. She is the Co-founder, Managing Director, and CEO of Quint Digital Limited, the parent company of '' The Quint'', a web-based digital news site and was one of the founding members of Network18 in 19 ...

and

Raghav Bahl Raghav Bahl is an Indian businessman, a serial entrepreneur, and an investor best known for his past ownership of several television channels, including TV18 India. He was the Founding/Controlling shareholder & managing director of Network18 Gr ...

to be converted into a conglomerate holding company between 2003 and 2006. It oversaw one of the largest collections of media properties in India following its conversion but became encumbered with debt due to aggressive expansions. In 2012, the company entered into a debt agreement with

, through which it was granted a number of channels from the

ETV Network ETV Network is a network of Telugu language news and entertainment satellite television channels in India. It is based in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. It also had some non Telugu-language satellite television channels. All non- Telugu satel ...

. The agreement eventually enabled a

hostile takeover In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company (law), company (the ''target'') by another (the ''acquirer'' or ''bidder''). In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are publicly listed, in contrast t ...

of the company in 2014.

History

1996–2007: Acquisition and restructuring

SGA Finance and Management Services was incorporated on 16 February 1996, as a

private limited company A private limited company is any type of business entity in Privately held company, "private" ownership used in many jurisdictions, in contrast to a Public company, publicly listed company, with some differences from country to country. Example ...

by Geeta and Rakesh Gupta and acquired soon afterwards by Vidya Devi and Anil Jindal. The company had remained inactive without any clear prospects until it was later acquired by the promoters of Television Eighteen India Limited. The news broadcasting company Television Eighteen (TEIL) founded by

and

, became a

public limited company A public limited company (legally abbreviated to PLC or plc) is a type of public company under United Kingdom company law, some Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth jurisdictions, and Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is a limited liability co ...

in 1999 and its

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...

(IPO) received an overwhelming response. The investments through the IPO exceeded the target set by the company by a magnitude of over 50 times by the end of the year, raising in the process. This decreased the promoters' stake in the company from 75% to 26.11% by 2002 causing complications. The company was in the middle of preparations to launch a Hindi business news channel but could no longer meet regulatory guidelines. TEIL was in a joint venture with

CNBC CNBC is an American List of business news channels, business news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group, a unit of Comcast's NBCUniversal. The network broadcasts live business news and analysis programming during the morning, Day ...

since 1998, and the news channel to be launched was called

CNBC Awaaz CNBC Awaaz (also known as Consumer News and Business Channel Awaaz) () is an Indian pay television Hindi business news channel, owned by Network18 Group and NBCUniversal based in New Delhi. CNBC Awaaz launched 'CNBC Awaaz Travel Awards'. H ...

. The guidelines required the Indian promoters to have more than 51% stake in their company to be able to establish a new

uplink In a telecommunications network, a link is a communication channel that connects two or more devices for the purpose of data transmission. The link may be a dedicated physical link or a virtual circuit that uses one or more physical links or shar ...

for broadcasting. CNBC Awaaz News Van

In 2003, SGA Finance was acquired by Ritu Kapur and Raghav Bahl, in to order to launch the channel and Bahl became its managing director. The company raised through two batches of investments from the two promoters in March 2003 and in January 2004, and then incorporated a subsidiary called SGA News. In the meantime, the government introduced a 26% foreign equity cap in the news broadcasting industry. In response to the new regulations the joint venture with CNBC was discarded and the partnership converted into a content branding and franchise agreement. In the financial year 2004–2005, TEIL invested in SGA News for preferences stocks. CNBC Awaaz was launched on 13 January 2005. In the financial year 2005–2006, TEIL supplemented its initial investment with an additional in SGA News for

common stocks Common stock is a form of corporate equity ownership, a type of security. The terms voting share and ordinary share are also used frequently outside of the United States. They are known as equity shares or ordinary shares in the UK and other Com ...

. Following this, the boards of both the companies proposed a restructuring which received approval from the shareholders. The companies underwent several rounds of restructuring which came to a conclusion in November 2006. TEIL became a subsidiary of SGA Finance, the promoters gained a majority stake in TEIL, CNBC Awaaz was transferred to TEIL and shareholders of TEIL were accommodated with a stake in SGA Finance. On 20 October 2006, SGA Finance was converted into a public limited company and re-incorporated as Network18 Fincap Limited. During the restructuring process, TEIL had also founded a subsidiary called Global Broadcast News (GBN). GBN had entered into a franchising partnership with CNN Worldwide to launch the English general news channel CNN IBN in December 2005. Bahl was able to convince several senior professionals working at the leading news broadcaster

NDTV New Delhi Television Ltd is an Indian news media company focusing on broadcast and digital news publication. It was founded in 1984 by economist Prannoy Roy and journalist Radhika Roy. NDTV began as a production house for news segments, ...

including their editor-in-chief Rajdeep Sardesai and the chief financial officer (CFO) Sameer Manchanda to join the enterprise before its launch. Haresh Chawla, the CEO of TEIL and Network18 was instrumental in both convincing Sardesai to quit and Bahl to take on NDTV as their competition. Due to the restructuring, Network18 instead of TEIL was allotted the shares of GBN and by the end of the financial year 2006–2007, Network18 held both GBN and TEIL as its subsidiaries; GBN operated CNN IBN and TEIL operating all the business news channels along with the information websites ''

'' and ''News Wire''. Network18 was converted into a public limited company in 2006, and listed on the

Bombay Stock Exchange BSE Limited, also known as the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), is an Indian stock exchange based in Mumbai. It is the 6th largest stock exchange in the world by total market capitalization, exceeding $5 trillion in May 2024. Established with t ...

(BSE) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in 2007.

2007–2011: Expansion, consolidation and increasing debt

Global Broadcast News (GBN), the subsidiary operating CNN IBN became a publicly traded company in January 2007 and its IPO generated a successful response, similar to that of Television Eighteen India Limited (TEIL). GBN was renamed as IBN18 Broadcast, and on 1 December 2007, Network18 Fincap itself was renamed to Network18 Media & Investments. Network18 began diversifying with cross media interests in 2008. It had high liquidity and expanded rapidly, it started the film production house called Indian Film Company (IFC), launched the shopping channel Home Shop18, and entered into an franchise agreement to launch the Indian edition of the ''Forbes'' business magazine, while IBN18 Broadcast entered into a joint venture with the

Marathi language Marathi (; , 𑘦𑘨𑘰𑘙𑘲, , ) is a Classical languages of India, classical Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language predominantly spoken by Marathi people in the Indian state of Maharashtra and is also spoken in Goa, and parts of Guj ...

newspaper ''

ViacomCBS Paramount Global (Trade name, d/b/a Paramount) is an American multinational mass media and entertainment Conglomerate (company), conglomerate controlled by National Amusements and Headquarters, headquartered at One Astor Plaza in Times Square, ...

to initiate the group's foray in mass media and general entertainment channels under

Viacom18 Viacom18 Media Private Limited is an independent Indian media conglomerate, part of JioStar. It is owned by Reliance Industries and Bodhi Tree Systems. The Organisation had various channels and content production studios in India. Following ...

. Network18 registered losses in the financial years 2008–2009 and 2009–2010. Its investments had outstripped the profits generated by its operational assets. In addition, the group had existing debt obligations and requirements for providing returns to its investors which resulted in net losses of and respectively. Viacom18 in particular was a drain on the company's funds. The financial statement of the company in 2009 had reported that it was retiring outstanding debt and raising funds through equity investments. In response to the financial challenges, the group began restructuring and consolidating its assets in the same year. IBN18 Broadcast was renamed to TV18 Broadcast and Television Eighteen India Limited (TEIL) which operated the business news channels of the company was merged into it. The digital media and publishing operations were transferred to the parent company Network18 under the divisions of

Web18 Software Services Web18 Software Services Limited was the Internet and mobile arm of Network18, an Indian media conglomerate. It had a variety of information and transactional services based on the Internet. History The TV18 group held 85% in Web18 Holdings whil ...

and Network18 Publishing respectively. In the financial year 2010–2011, Network18 registered a loss of , which was a considerable decrease from the previous two years and Bahl reportedly told the shareholders during the presentation of the annual report that "the best times are still ahead of us". In 2010, Network18 went on to announce a new joint venture AETN18 with the American media company

A&E Networks A&E Television Networks, LLC, doing business as A+E Global Media (formerly A+E Networks) is an American multinational broadcasting company owned and operated as a 50–50 joint venture between Hearst Communications and The Walt Disney Company th ...

to launch

, the Indian edition of

History channel History (formerly and commonly known as the History Channel) is an American pay television television broadcaster, network and the flagship channel of A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney General Entertainme ...

. The company had also entered into a distribution joint venture with the Sun Network called Sun18. It had 2 divisions named Sun18 North and Sun18 South, the former was managed by Network18 and the latter by the Sun Network. The joint venture was later restricted to

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is the southernmost States and union territories of India, state of India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of Indi ...

and replaced by the TV18–Viacom18 distribution joint venture IndiaCast in 2012. The consolidation of assets was completed by 2011 but it alone could not mitigate the financial challenges. Over the past years, the market had changed rapidly, the group was facing increased competition from other broadcasters, and advertising revenue had decreased due to economic downturn.

2011–2014: Takeover by Reliance Industries

Network18 had made optimistic projections for years but after 2011, it came to face a possible financial collapse and loss of control for its managing director Raghav Bahl. The group had accumulated an outstanding debt of over by September 2011. Employees were convinced that the company had expanded too aggressively and the market could not support it. In search of assistance in the form of external financing, Bahl decided to begin talks with the multinational energy giant

. In November 2011, the CEO, Haresh Chawla resigned despite having been one of the founders of the media conglomerate. According to company insiders, he was persistently trying to convince Bahl to not enter into a debt agreement with

and instead raise funds by divesting part of the group's stake in the subsidiary Viacom18. In a later interview, he had commented that his resignation was an easy decision as he did not want anything to do with the Ambanis. According to a senior editor at the group, the decision to enter the talks was made reluctantly, as " ahlwas in a bind about entering a pact with the devil".

On 3 January 2012, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and Network18 announced a partnership. Reliance Industries set up a body called the Independent Media Trust (IMT) and infused funds into the company through a number of shell companies as part of a complex financial transaction. was transferred to Network18 and TV18 Broadcast, half the amount to each respectively, of which Network18 received a net amount of due to its stake in TV18. The shell companies gained rights to

debentures In corporate finance, a debenture is a medium- to long-term debt instrument used by large companies to borrow money, at a fixed rate of interest. The legal term "debenture" originally referred to a document that either creates a debt or acknowle ...

convertible to equity within 10 years. RIL also forced Network18 to buy its stakeholding in

for a sum of without which the net sum would have been for a much smaller amount. The purchase also included two regional broadcasters; Panorama and Prism. The acquisition included most of the television broadcasting properties of the Ramoji Group. The group retained the rights to ETV brand, while Network18 acquired 100% shareholding of 5 general news channels, 50% shareholding of 5 general entertainment channels and 24.5% shareholding in 2 other channels. The entertainment channels were held by the joint venture of Viacom18. One point of disagreement for Chawla had been in the valuation of ETV at when the company was worth only in March 2011. The transaction was completed in 2013, and turned Network18 into the largest group of media companies in India, surpassing

Star India Disney Star (also known as JioStar), registered as JioStar India Private Limited, is an Indian media conglomerate joint venture owned with a share of 16.34% by Reliance Industries, 46.82% by Viacom18 and 36.84% by Disney India. On 14 Nove ...

owned by the billionaire media mogul

Rupert Murdoch Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian - American retired business magnate, investor, and media mogul. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of List of assets owned by News Corp, local, national, a ...

and

The Times Group Bennett Coleman and Company Limited (BCCL), d/b/a the Times Group, is an Indian media conglomerate based in Mumbai. Notable media properties owned and operated by the group include India's largest selling daily English-language newspaper ''The ...

owned by the Sahu Jain family. The

broadband In telecommunications, broadband or high speed is the wide-bandwidth (signal processing), bandwidth data transmission that exploits signals at a wide spread of frequencies or several different simultaneous frequencies, and is used in fast Inter ...

subsidiary of RIL, Infotel signed a memorandum of understanding with the group and gained preferential access to its content. In the form of a passive investor, RIL had indirect control over the company, and authority over its financial decisions. The executives retained operational control of the company. On 12 November 2012, IMT passed a resolution which allowed two senior officials from RIL to be appointed as additional trustees and Bahl lost further control within the trust. IMT held the option of converting the debentures to equity which could turn RIL into the majority shareholder of Network18. In 2013, Network18 had become debt free, and RIL's investment had led to assumptions that it would not initiate any further cost cutting measures. Viacom18 after being a drain on the network's finances for years had finished its long germination period and had entered into a period of exponential growth. However, on 16 August 2013, the company carried out an unexpected large scale wage reduction and staff lay-offs which came to be known as "Black Friday" among the employees. In the news branches, the lay-offs included around 300 producers, journalists and other staff, who were fired in no recognisable pattern in terms of salary, seniority or branch. There was ambiguity over severance packages and compensations and the human resources department was accompanied by executives of the RIL backed IMT in abrupt handing out of termination letters to employees without prior notice, who were then told to leave within 10 minutes. This further led to

job insecurity Job security is the probability that an individual will keep their job; a job with a high level of security is such that a person with the job would have a small chance of losing it. Many factors threaten job security: globalization, outsourcing ...

among employees, many of whom began applying for and were hired by competing news broadcasters in the following period. In the months of November–December, the network's coverage of

Arvind Kejriwal Arvind Kejriwal (; born 16 August 1968) is an Indian politician, activist and former bureaucrat, who served as the 7th Chief Minister of Delhi. He was the chief minister from 2013 to 2014 and from 2015 to 2024. He is also the national conve ...

started to become a source of contention with RIL and Ambani. Kejriwal was the head of the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement and had made several allegations against various politicians and businessmen, including Mukesh Ambani. His allegations against Ambani and RIL was over irregularities in pricing of

natural gas Natural gas (also fossil gas, methane gas, and gas) is a naturally occurring compound of gaseous hydrocarbons, primarily methane (95%), small amounts of higher alkanes, and traces of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and helium ...

in the Krishna Godavari Basin which received national media attention and was reported on by Network18 as well. RIL denied the allegation and reacted by threatening to file a lawsuit against Kejriwal but without any effect. Following which, the energy giant reportedly attempted to pressurise Network18 into censoring any and all coverage of IAC and Kejriwal including in March 2014, in a direct communication between Ambani and Rajdeep Sardesai, the managing editor of CNN IBN and IBN 7. In the previous years, one allegation that had come up against Ambani was that he had bailed out

Ramoji Rao Cherukuri Ramoji Rao (16 November 1936 – 8 June 2024) was an Indian businessman, media proprietor and film producer. He was head of the Ramoji Group which owns the world's largest film production facility Ramoji Film City, '' Eenadu'' news ...

in the Margdarsai chit fund scandal and in the process gained stake in Rao's ETV Network, the same company which RIL had forced Network18 to buy a stake in. According to an anonymous insider present at a meeting between the executives of Network18 and RIL, the right-hand man of Ambani, Manoj Modi had threatened Bahl by stating "You are calling us a dacoit, you are shouting that we are crony capitalists. If that is so, then why did you come to us for money in the first place? Do you think you have a clean record?" Around the same time, the network increasingly began leaning right wing and attempted to publicise

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician who has served as the Prime Minister of India, prime minister of India since 2014. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Par ...

as the prospective prime ministerial candidate with feature pieces and continuous reporting. The network dedicated more hours than any other broadcaster to Modi and disproportionately more compared to other candidates. The executives of Network18 were eager to repay the loan to RIL and get rid of Ambani's influence over the company. Reports have suggested that the network's coverage of Kejriwal became the trigger for the company to initiate a takeover. RIL communicated its intention to Bahl, offering him the option of continuing as managing editor with a annual salary and gave him 3 days to make his decision. He rejected the offer and on 27 May 2014, announced in midst of a routine meeting with his board of directors that he was going to resign as RIL wanted to takeover and nothing could be done about it. The announcement caused an exodus of employees from the company which included senior journalists and executives. B. Sai Kumar (CEO) and Ajay Chacko (COO) resigned on 28 May 2014. From the following day, a stream of resignations started coming in while RIL released a press statement that it had gained complete control of the company, R. D. S. Bawa (CFO) and

(co-promoter and one of the directors) resigned on the same day. The legal

general counsel A general counsel, also known as chief counsel or chief legal officer (CLO), is the chief in-house lawyer for a company or a governmental department. In a company, the person holding the position typically reports directly to the CEO, and their ...

to the company, Kshipra Jatana resigned from her position but stayed on to oversee the transfer of ownership. She was appointed as the manager of the company for the interim period since Bahl had resigned as well. Bahl and Kapur received for RIL to acquire their remaining shares. The net valuation of the company was at , whereas the net cash flow for RIL stood at in the multi year transaction between 2011 and 2014 including those related to ETV. RIL had mitigated costs in this period through returns from the investments in the two companies and from selling the shares it had acquired in Network18's subsidiaries themselves. It was noted that due to the structure of the transaction, RIL had in effect partly financed its takeover by raising funds from the company's own subsidiaries such as TV18 Broadcast. The takeover process was completed on 7 July 2014; IMT and its sole benefactor RIL became the new promoters group.

2014–Present: Reliance Industries era

Following the takeover, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) reshuffled the management and board of directors of both Network18 and its subsidiary TV18 Broadcast. The nominees of the RIL backed Independent Media Trust (IMT) joined the board of Network18. Deepak Parekh, the chairman of Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) and Adil Zainulbhai were also inducted into the company as independent directors in the board. While retaining the position of independent director at RIL and

Larsen & Toubro Larsen & Toubro Limited, abbreviated as L&T, is an Indian multinational conglomerate, with interests in industrial technology, heavy industry, engineering, construction, manufacturing, power, information technology, defence and financial se ...

, and being the newly elected

government's appointment to the position of chairman of

Quality Council of India The Quality Council of India (QCI) was set up as a public private partnership model on the model existing in Netherlands at the time, where although the National Accreditation Body (NAB) was not owned by the government, the government supported i ...

(QCI), Zainulbhai was appointed by RIL to the position of chairman of the board. Commentators raised concerns that the editorial integrity of the network may not be preserved under the new management. The channels of the network had stopped all coverage of Kejriwal and the new

Aam Aadmi Party The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP, ) is a List of political parties in India, political party in India. It was founded on 26 November 2012 by Arvind Kejriwal and his then-companions, following the 2011 Indian anti-corruption movement against then gover ...

who had levied corruption accusations at RIL. The editor-in-chief of the flagship general news channel CNN IBN, resigned within a week of the takeover with the reason that the management was interfering in editorial decision making and dictating what could or could not be aired. A. P. Parigi, the former managing director and CEO of

Entertainment Network India Limited Entertainment Network India Limited (ENIL) (, ) is a subsidiary of Times Infotainment Media Limited, the holding company promoted by The Times Group, incorporated in 1999. ENIL is the only listed company in the otherwise privately held Times Gro ...

(

subsidiary operating

Radio Mirchi Radio Mirchi ("''Mirchi"'' in Hindi meaning red chilli), also known as 98.3 Mirchi, is a nationwide network of private FM radio stations in India. It is owned by the ENIL, EntertainmentNetwork India Ltd (ENIL), which is one of the subsidiarie ...

), was recruited by RIL and appointed as the new CEO of Network18 on 29 January 2015. Parigi resigned as CEO and was moved to an advisory role in the company on 1 October. Rahul Joshi replaced Parigi as the new CEO and was made the

of the group. Joshi was the editorial director of ''

The Economic Times ''The Economic Times'' is an Indian English-language business-focused daily newspaper. Owned by The Times Group, ''The Economic Times'' began publication in 1961 and it is sold in all major cities in India. As of 2012, it is the world's secon ...

'', a financial newspaper published by The Times Group before he had resigned from the company to join Network18 in August 2015. The editorial departments were unified with the operational and commercial divisions of the company, the chairman Zainulbhai stated that Pairigi had helped stabilise the operations and that Joshi would now run the company with an "ownership mindset". The acquisition of the company by RIL, the largest conglomerate in India with deep interests in the

energy sector The energy industry refers to all of the industries involved in the production and sale of energy, including fuel extraction, manufacturing, refining and distribution. Modern society consumes large amounts of fuel, and the energy industry is a cr ...

, was considered to be a part of a trend of growing

commodification Commodification is the process of transforming inalienable, free, or gifted things (objects, services, ideas, nature, personal information, people or animals) into commodities, or objects for sale.For animals"United Nations Commodity Trade Stati ...

of information, detrimental to the treatment of journalism as a

public service A public service or service of general (economic) interest is any service intended to address the needs of aggregate members of a community, whether provided directly by a public sector agency, via public financing available to private busin ...

. It increased the concentration of cross media ownership in the hands of a small group of large corporate actors in a market that was already oligopolistic and reduced the diversity of information disseminating outlets. Control over the news organisation, had strengthened RIL's ability to influence the formation of

public opinion Public opinion, or popular opinion, is the collective opinion on a specific topic or voting intention relevant to society. It is the people's views on matters affecting them. In the 21st century, public opinion is widely thought to be heavily ...

and as a result the

political economy Political or comparative economy is a branch of political science and economics studying economic systems (e.g. Marketplace, markets and national economies) and their governance by political systems (e.g. law, institutions, and government). Wi ...

of the country, and also decreased space for reporting which could be detrimental to the energy giant's interests and public relations. Between 2014 and 2016, Network18 attempted to expand into regional markets of the news broadcasting sector with a spate of new channels, which was seen with apprehension among media observers. The expansion occurred as part of RIL's investment in the rollout of its 4G data business. RIL had stated during the takeover that the acquisition would help in differentiating their 4G business through

corporate synergy Corporate synergy is a financial benefit that a corporation expects to realize when it merges with or acquires another corporation. Corporate synergy occurs when corporations interact congruently with one another, creating additional value. Syn ...

. Infotel, the broadband subsidiary of RIL had been reincorporated as Reliance Jio Infocomm and was in the process of launching its data transfer business. It was suggested that the synergy would alleviate stresses posed by unstable market conditions in the news broadcast industry, while Jio would provide exclusive content from Network18 productions to increase traffic towards itself and expand its customer base. The synergy was however not adopted, according to analysts it was not financially beneficial to restrict content to only Jio customers and that Jio itself could be more profitable by being a content aggregator at competitive rates and still have a cost advantage due to its scale. In 2016, Network18 undertook a rebranding operation, the IBN brand was phased out and replaced with News18, channels such as CNN IBN renamed to

CNN-News18 CNN News18 is an Indian English-language news television channel founded by Raghav Bahl based in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India. It is currently co-owned by Network18 Group and Warner Bros. Discovery. CNN provides international coverage for the ...

, and IBN7 renamed to

News18 India News18 India is an Indian Hindi-language television channel owned by the Network18 Group. It was launched in 2005 as Channel 7 by Jagran Prakashan and acquired in 2006 by Network18 Group and rebranded IBN7. In 2016 it took its current name. ...

, among others. Earlier in December 2015, CNN Worldwide had finalised its decision to renew the franchise licensing agreement with Network18, after a period of uncertainty. In May 2018, '' Cobrapost'' released a set of footages from a sting operation into several media organisations. Network18 was one of the organisations featured, and the sting displayed positive responses from senior marketing executives of the company to a proposition of entering into an agreement for undisclosed paid news to promote

Hindutva Hindutva (; ) is a Far-right politics, far-right political ideology encompassing the cultural justification of Hindu nationalism and the belief in establishing Hindu hegemony within India. The political ideology was formulated by Vinayak Da ...

political propaganda. The executives included sales and marketing head of the group as well as the sales head of the ETV Network with the latter remarking that they were already pushing the ideology and would increase their efforts by 80–90% following the agreement. The implications of the sting raised questions about

media independence Independent media refers to any media, such as television, newspapers, or Internet-based publications free of influence by government or corporate interests. The term has varied applications. Independence stands as a cornerstone principle withi ...

in India, and was described as a part of a phenomenon where the separation of editorial and marketing departments of news organisations are increasingly blurred due to advertisement business models. Several of the media houses denied the allegation put forth by the sting, Network18 did not respond to it. On 9 July 2018, Joshi was elevated to the position of managing director while retaining the designations of CEO and group editor-in-chief. Kshipra Jatana who had officially held the designation of managing director since Bahl's resgination was removed from the position. In 2019, Network18 initiated heavy cost cutting measures, increments and new hires were frozen while budgets for employing freelancers were greatly reduced. Newsrooms were demoralised as uncertainty grew among employees and outlets such as ''Firstpost'' which relied heavily on freelancers were severely affected in their operations. Economic slowdown had reduced advertisement revenues and the regional channels of the company had not been successful in their respective markets. The group had registered losses in the financial years of 2016–2017 and 2017–2018. On 21 November 2019, RIL entered into talks with the Japanese multinational media conglomerate Sony Group for consideration over a number of potential deal structures including merger options, schemes for acquisition of a stake in Network18 or the acquisition of the entertainment assets of the company, among others. On 28 November,

Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to: People * Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer * Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian * Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician a ...

broke the news that Ambani was also in talks with The Times Group to potentially sell off the entire media conglomerate as it was suffering from losses. In response to the report, RIL released a statement describing it as "false and malicious". The Times Group denied it but with an addendum that " heywill explore all strategic options as they present". In the following period, Network18's business news website ''

'' published an article which claimed that the newly founded joint venture, BloombergQuint was on the verge of collapse. The article was published 5 days after Bloomberg's report and was described as a retaliatory piece. In February 2020, RIL announced that it would consolidate its distribution and media businesses. The subsidiary TV18 Broadcast would be merged with Network18, which would acquire the cable distribution companies DEN Networks and Hathway Cable & Datacom as two wholly owned subsidiaries, RIL held the two companies through an earlier acquisition in October 2018. The merger would have converted the Network18 into an integrated media and distribution company. The shareholding of the RIL in Network18 was projected to be reduced to 64% from 75% upon conclusion of the transactions in the merger operations. According to some analysts, the consolidation would streamline the corporate structure of the company and make it a more attractive option for strategic investors, while others stated that it decreased the likelihood of an agreement with Sony due to its key interest, the entertainment assets of Network18 becoming closely associated with the news operations, where there were restrictions over foreign ownership. In April 2020, the MD and CEO of Viacom18, Shudhanshu Vats resigned and Joshi took over his position as an additional charge. The talks with Sony came to a finalised decision for a merger between Viacom18 and

Sony Pictures Networks India Culver Max Entertainment Pvt. Ltd., trading as Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN or SPNI), is an Indian media conglomerate owned by Sony Pictures Television. SPN manages and operates 26 television channels, the streaming media platform SonyLIV ...

in July. The merger was scheduled to be completed by the end of August, Sony would obtain 74% stake leaving Viacom18 with 26% stake in the merged entity; Network18 and ViacomCBS would have around 13% in it respectively. The plans for the merger was abandoned in October. The implementation of the consolidation with the distribution companies was itself delayed and eventually cancelled in April 2021. In October 2020, TV18 Broadcast reported an 148.2% increase in profit margins during the

COVID-19 pandemic in India The COVID-19 pandemic in India is a part of the COVID-19 pandemic, worldwide pandemic of COVID-19, coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). As of , according to Indian government ...

and the company attributed it to "proactive measures on cost-control". In a Right to Information (RTI) request response in June 2021, data released by the Uttar Pradesh government showed that the government's spending on television advertisements was at between April 2020 and May 2021 with Network18 as its biggest beneficiary. Promotion of the Atmanirbhar Bharat campaign constituted a major portion of the spending and was made in the initial part of the year. Umashankar Dube, a journalist who had filed the RTI request had raised questions seeking answers to why the spending was made on television advertisements and not on relief efforts in midst of the pandemic but the Uttar Pradesh government's additional chief secretary of information refused to respond to queries on advertisement spending.

Corporate affairs

Ownership

* The group was acquired by

led conglomerate

in 2014. The acquisition occurred by maneuvering a complex deal through the Independent Media Trust (IMT), set up by Reliance Industries to issue a loan for the debt encumbered Network18 in 2012. It resulted in Reliance receiving 78% of the shareholding, and as of 2019, the conglomerate holds 73.16% of the shares. *Teesta Retail is a

which holds 1.85% shareholding of the group. It is an arm of Reliance Industries Investments and Holdings and is listed in the promoters group shareholders of Network18. The ownership of Teesta Retail is held by ten shell companies registered at the same address and with Reliance Industries domain names for their websites. The ten companies have listed directors of whom seven appear across all of them, who are also directors at various Reliance subsidiaries. *Network18 is a

and the public holdings constitutes around 25% of its shareholdings. Among major individual shareholders was the

Chief Financial Officer A chief financial officer (CFO) is an officer of a company or organization who is assigned the primary responsibility for making decisions for the company for projects and its finances; i.a.: financial planning, management of financial risks, ...

(CFO) of Network18, Hariharan Mahadevan who held 1.11% of the shares as a part of the public in 2019.

Management

was the first director of the company after the resignation of the Jindals and was followed by

, who was the managing director of the company between 2003 and 2014. Haresh Chawla is considered to be the founding CEO of the company. He was appointed as the CEO of

TV18 TV18 Broadcast Limited (formerly Global Broadcast News and IBN18 Broadcast Limited) was an Indian television company based in Mumbai and owned by Network18 Group. TV18 owned and operates various national channels in separate partnerships with ...

in 1999, having formerly worked at

Times Music Times Music is an Indian music record label copyright music publishing company, owned by The Times Group, Headquartered in Mumbai, India. Times Music started operations in 1998 and has a catalogue of more than 60,000 tracks in all languages an ...

and

Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Amitabh Bachchan Corporation (formerly Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Limited, ABCL), also known as AB Corp, is an Indian entertainment company founded by actor Amitabh Bachchan in 1995. The company was involved in event management, film producti ...

. Chawla became the first CEO of Network18 after it was acquired and converted into the holding company of TV18. He resigned from the company in November 2011 before Network18 entered into a deal with Reliance Industries, publicly stating that he wanted nothing to with the Ambanis. According to Raghav Bahl, the entire credit for enabling Network18 to establish a diverse variety of partnerships with the likes of CNN Worldwide,

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

, Viacom and

History Channel History (formerly and commonly known as the History Channel) is an American pay television television broadcaster, network and the flagship channel of A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney General Entertainme ...

belonged to Chawla. The COO, B. Sai Kumar succeeded Chawla as the CEO of Network18, and resigned before the takeover of the company by Reliance. One of the directors at Reliance Industries and the

Prime Minister of India The prime minister of India (ISO 15919, ISO: ) is the head of government of the Republic of India. Executive authority is vested in the prime minister and his chosen Union Council of Ministers, Council of Ministers, despite the president of ...

's appointment to the

, Adil Zainulbhai became the chairman of the board of directors of the company following the takeover. Kshipra Jatana was the

at the group and had resigned during the takeover. She remained associated with the company to oversee the transition, and became the manager in the interim period. A. P. Parigi was appointed as the new CEO of the company after Sai Kumar's exit and held the position until he was moved to an advisory position by Reliance Industries in October 2015. Rahul Joshi, the editorial director at ''

'' was recruited and appointed as both the CEO and editor-in-chief of the entire group following the takeover. In 2018, Joshi was elevated to the position of managing director by the board and Jatana resigned from her position.

Operating divisions and subsidiaries

Broadcast subsidiary

TV18 Broadcast is the broadcasting subsidiary of Network18. The company owns a 51.16% stake in the subsidiary as of 2019, while the rest of the shareholding is divided between various Reliance Industries properties and shareholdings of individual members of the public. It operates 2 national general news channels and 14 regional general news channels in several languages under the brand of News18, including the news channels which were acquired by the group from the

in 2012–2014. The general news channel

(English) is operated by TV18 for which Network18 has a brand and content licensing agreement with CNN Worldwide. The subsidiary also operates the business news channels of

CNBC TV18 CNBC TV18 is an Indian pay television business and financial news channel operated as a joint venture between NBCUniversal and Network18 Group. History The network has its origins in ABNi, an Indian sub-feed of the Dow Jones-led Asia Bu ...

(English),

(Hindi) and CNBC Bajar (Gujarati) for which the group has a franchise licensing agreement with

NBCUniversal NBCUniversal Media, LLC (abbreviated as NBCU and Trade name, doing business as NBCUniversal or Comcast NBCUniversal since 2013) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational mass media and Show business, entertainment conglomerate (comp ...

, the owner of

Joint ventures

TV18 provides

mass media Mass media include the diverse arrays of media that reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit information electronically via media such as films, radio, recorded music, or television. Digital media comprises b ...

services and

general entertainment Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but it is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousands ...

channels through two joint ventures, namely Viacom18 Media Limited and AETN18 Media Limited. The Marathi general news channel News18 Lokmat is also managed through a joint venture with the

daily newspaper ''

Lokmat ''Lokmat'' ( ) is a Marathi-language newspaper published in Maharashtra, India. Founded in 1971 by Jawaharlal Darda, it is the largest read Marathi-language newspaper in India. and has presence in print, digital, TV and events.joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acce ...

between TV18 Broadcast and

Paramount Global Paramount Global (Trade name, d/b/a Paramount) is an American multinational mass media and entertainment Conglomerate (company), conglomerate controlled by National Amusements and Headquarters, headquartered at One Astor Plaza in Times Square, ...

(previously called ViacomCBS) with 51% and 49% stake respectively. It is parent company of 46 mass media channels in 8 languages which include the franchises of Colors,

MTV MTV (an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on ...

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (nicknamed Nick) is an American pay television channel and the flagship property of the Nickelodeon Group, a sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on April 1, 1979, as the first ca ...

VH1 VH1 (originally an initialism for Video Hits One) is an American basic cable television network that launched on January 1, 1985, and is currently owned by the MTV Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global's networks division based in New Y ...

and

Comedy Central Comedy Central is an American Cable television in the United States, cable television channel, channel owned by Paramount Global through its Paramount Media Networks, network division's Paramount Media Networks#MTV Entertainment Group, MTV Ente ...

. The Colors network is an umbrella of a number of general entertainment channels in various Indian languages, and includes two Hindi language mass entertainment channels

and Colors Rishtey. The ETV entertainment channels and the channels of Prism which were acquired by the group are rebranded as channels under the Colors franchise. The Indian editions of

and

, and the children's channels of

(Indian edition), Nick Jr. and

Nickelodeon Sonic Nickelodeon Sonic (formerly Sonic Nickelodeon) is an Indian children's pay television channel operated by Viacom18 as part of the Nickelodeon India network. After on the air, Sonic became the fourth most watched channel across all genres with ...

are managed by Viacom18. The franchise of Coke Studio India is owned and operated by the company through MTV India. Viacom18 Digital Ventures is a division of Viacom18 that operates the advertisement based

OTT platform An over-the-top media service (also known as over-the-top television, or simply OTT) is a digital distribution service of video and audio delivered directly to viewers via the public Internet, rather than through an over-the-air, cable, satell ...

called Voot and two subscription based OTT platforms, namely the premium edition Voot Select and the children's edition Voot Kids. The joint venture also owns the production studio called Viacom18 Motion Pictures which has produced critically acclaimed films such as the '' Gangs of Wasseypur'' (2012), '' Kahaani'' (2012) and ''Queen'' (2014). The studio has an additional digital production division called Tipping Point which produces content for Voot and JioCinema, the OTT platform of Reliance Jio. Among other divisions of Viacom18 are Integrated Network Solutions (INS) which develops intellectual properties and Viacom18 Consumer Products which manages the

licensing A license (American English) or licence ( Commonwealth English) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another par ...

business of the venture. AETN18 Media is a joint venture between TV18 Broadcast and

, the owner of the

franchise. TV18 and A&E Networks respectively have 51% and 49% stake in the joint venture. AETN18 owns and operates the infotainment channel of

, and formerly operated the lifestyle channels of FYI TV18 which was shut down in 2020. IndiaCast Media, the distribution arm of the Network18 Group is a 50:50 joint venture between Viacom18 Media and TV18 Broadcast, which provides domestic and international distribution services for the company. TV18 as a result of the equity division has a cumulative 75% stake in the distribution venture. IndiaCast was also in a distribution joint venture with DisneyUTV in which TV18 retained 56% stake. The joint venture with DisneyUTV was called IndiaCast UTV; it was founded in 2013, converted into a distribution deal due to introduction of TRAI regulations in the following year and the distribution deal eventually cancelled in 2015.

Digital and publishing divisions

Network18 Publishing is the

publishing house Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

of the group and publishes a number of business directories, and

B2C Direct-to-consumer (DTC or D2C) or business-to-consumer (B2C) is the business model of selling products directly to customers and thereby bypassing any third-party retailers, wholesalers, or middlemen. Direct-to-consumer sales are usually transa ...

and B2B magazines. The division publishes magazines such as ''

Better Interiors ''Better Interiors'' is an Indian monthly interior design magazine. Background The magazine was established by Infomedia India on 5 May 2005. Infomedia India was taken over by Indian media and entertainment company Network 18. Sister publicat ...

'' and ''Better Photography'' and the magazines of '' Overdrive'' and ''

'' as part of a licensing agreement with OverDrive, Inc. and Forbes Inc. respectively''.'' The digital media division of the group is called

. It operates the digital news outlets of Network18 such as the websites of News18.com (formerly IBNLive.com) and ''Firstpost'', and mobile apps and social media assets of News18. The editorial management of ''Firstpost'' is merged with that of the ''Forbes India'' magazine. The business news website Moneycontrol.com is also owned by Network18. The

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

channel, CRUX. news, is a Network18 product. Moneycontrol suffered a data breach in April 2021, exposing the data of more than 7 million users, including 63,000 email addresses, geographic locations, phone numbers, genders, dates of birth and plain text passwords.

Investments

The venture investment division of the company is called Capital18. Its investments include the travel bookings website

Yatra ''Yatra'' (, ), in Indian religion, Indian-origin religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, generally means a pilgrimage to holy places such as confluences of River#Sacred rivers, sacred rivers, Sacred mountains#India, sacred mount ...

, the marketing website ''Webchutney'', the movie ticket booking website ''BookMyShow'', the brokerage firm SMC Global and the financial technology company Infibeam.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Network18 Group Television stations in Delhi Television stations in Mumbai Television stations in New Delhi Television broadcasting companies of India Mass media companies based in Mumbai Companies based in Mumbai Indian companies established in 1993 Mass media companies established in 1993 Television channels and stations established in 1993 2014 mergers and acquisitions 1993 establishments in Maharashtra Companies listed on the National Stock Exchange of India Companies listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange Cybercrime in India