NDTV

New Delhi Television Limited (NDTV) is an Indian television media company founded in 1988 by Radhika Roy, a journalist. NDTV started off as a content provider for Doordarshan, producing the show The World This Week in November 1988. In 1998 NDTV started its own 24X7 news channel with STAR and later shifted to its own venture in 2003, launching both the English and Hindi versions of the channel. NDTV's slogan is "Experience. Truth First".

For the English news-channel owned by NDTV, see NDTV 24x7

New Delhi Television Ltd.
Public
Traded asBSE: 532529
NSE: NDTV
IndustryMass media
Founded1988 (1988)
FoundersPrannoy Roy
Radhika Roy
HeadquartersNew Delhi, India
Key people
Prannoy Roy (Co-Chairperson)
Radhika Roy (Co-Chairperson)
ProductsBroadcasting
Web portals
Revenue₹393 crore (US$55 million) (2020)[1]
₹29 crore (US$4.1 million) (2020)[1]
Number of employees
543 (2019)[2]
Websitewww.ndtv.com

As of June 2019, New Delhi Television. Securities and Exchange Board of India barred Prannoy Roy and his wife Radhika Roy from accessing the securities market for 2 years after an investigation revealed that they concealed material info from shareholders regarding loan agreements and hence, they cannot hold management positions in NDTV board.[3][4] In August 2019, its CEO Suparna Singh resigned after CBI booked promoters for alleged FDI norms violation.[5]

History

NDTV started out as a content provider company for the public broadcaster Doordarshan.[6] It started off in November 1988 by producing the 30 minute weekly news show The World This Week for Doordarshan.[7] In 1989, NDTV created India's first live coverage and analysis of the general elections. In 1995 NDTV produced a national news show, "Tonight", which was telecast on Doordarshan.[6]

NDTV personnel embarked aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt film flight operations during Exercise Malabar 2015
Shehla Rashid being interviewed by NDTV during the Yuva Hunkar Rally at Parliament Street, New Delhi, India.

In 1998 NDTV started India's first 24x7 news show in collaboration with Rupert Murdoch's STAR News Channel.[7][6] Interestingly, during the initial years there was always a delay of 10 minutes which later shifted to five minutes between telecast and production of live news due to government restrictions.[6] In 1999, NDTV launched its website.[7]

Channels operating

Channels of NDTV Group are:[8]

Notable personalities
Shahrukh Khan at the NDTV Greenathon at Yash Raj Studios. Visible is Prannoy Roy and Vikram Chandra.

Notable former associates

Controversies

Corruption and criminal conspiracy

On 20 January 1998, Central Bureau of Investigation filed various cases against New Delhi Television (NDTV) managing director Prannoy Roy, former director general of Doordarshan R. Basu and five other top officials of Doordarshan under Section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for criminal conspiracy and under the Prevention of Corruption Act. According to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) charge-sheet, Doordarshan suffered a loss of over Rs. 35.2 million due to the "undue favours" shown to NDTV as its programme The World This Week (TWTW) was put in 'A' category instead of 'special A' category.[13][14][15][16][17][18]

Radia tapes controversy
Main article: Radia tapes controversy

In November 2010, OPEN magazine carried a story which reported transcripts of some of the telephone conversations of Nira Radia with senior journalists, politicians, and corporate houses, many of whom have denied the allegations. The Central Bureau of Investigation has announced that they have 5,851 recordings of phone conversations by Radia, some of which outline Radia's attempts to broker deals in relation to the 2G spectrum sale.[19] The tapes appear to demonstrate how Radia attempted to use some media persons including NDTV's Barkha Dutt to influence the decision to appoint A. Raja as telecom minister.[20] She left the channel in January 2017.[21]

Tax fraud

NDTV, through its foreign subsidiaries have allegedly violated numerous Indian tax and corporate laws.[22] NDTV has denied these allegations.[23]

The Sunday Guardian, a centre-left newspaper ran a story which exposed the NDTV's financial misdemeanours and malpractices in connivance with ICICI Bank.[24] It provides details of how NDTV's major stakeholders raised funds by misdeclaration of the value of shares in NDTV. NDTV CEO claimed[25] to the Sunday Guardian along with the threat of "criminal defamation". On 5 June 2017, the house of Prannoy Roy was raided by NIA and CBI.

On 19 November 2015, the ED served ₹2,030 crore (US$280 million) notice to NDTV for alleged violations under the FEMA act,[26] however the company said it has been advised that the allegations, while true are not "legally tenable".[27]

The "Income Tax Appellate Tribunal" (ITAT) has upheld an income tax department finding that promoters of NDTV used their own shell companies to round-trip investments of ₹642 crore (US$90 million) during 2009–10, making them liable for recovery of tax and penalty.[28]

Regarding an investment by the US TV network, NBC (an 80% subsidiary of GE at the time) into NDTV Networks of $150 million, both NDTV and NBC/GE insist was an absolutely legal and bona fide investment while the IT department claims it is an illegal transaction. NDTV has called it the Indian Authorities variant of "McCarthyism" to suppress the media.[29]

Commonwealth Games contract

On 5 August 2011, Comptroller and Auditor General of India's report on XIX Commonwealth Games was tabled in Parliament of India. In section 14.4.2 of the report, CAG alleged that while awarding contracts worth ₹37.8 million (US$530,000) for production and broadcast of commercials to promote CWG-2010 to NDTV and CNN-IBN, the Commonwealth Games Organizing Committee followed an arbitrary approach. Proposals were considered in an ad-hoc manner, as and when a proposal was received; no form of competitive tendering was adopted. The CAG further said in its report that, "We had no assurance about the competitiveness of the rates quoted by these channels and the need and usefulness of these proposals. From March 2010 to June 2010, the entire pre games publicity and sponsorship publicity was done only on NDTV & CNN-IBN."[30][31][32]

Suit against TAM India

In 2012, NDTV alleged that TV rating measurement company TAM had indulged in malpractice of influencing and generating favourable TV ratings for their channel. They claimed that two TAM representatives had met NDTV staff in April with an offer to fix the TV ratings in 2–3 weeks by bribing viewers in homes (which otherwise are secret) where the measuring meters were installed. NDTV claimed that this malpractice had resulted in enormous losses for the company over several years and filed a case against TAM, TAM India and its global parent firms for $1.39 billion in the Supreme Court of New York.[33] Subsequently, in 2014, the New York Supreme Court dismissed NDTV's petition citing that since it was based on activities and impact in India, NDTV needed to pursue the case in India instead of the US.[34]

One-day ban

On 4 November 2016, the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting ordered the channel to go off air on 9 November for allegedly divulging 'strategically sensitive' details while covering January's deadly attack on the Pathankot air base.[35] Government scrapped their decision on the ban for reasons not made clear.

2008 loan case

On 5 June 2017, the CBI raided premises of channel promoters Prannoy and Radika Roy, accusing it of "causing an alleged loss" to ICICI Bank of ₹48 crore (US$6.7 million).[36] The complainant, Sanjay Dutt, Director of Quantum Securities Pvt. Ltd., alleged that the Roys took a loan of around ₹350 crore (US$49 million) from ICICI in 2008–09, putting up their shareholdings in the company at an inflated value as collateral. He added that while the amount was repaid the following year, the accrued interest of ₹50 crore (US$7.0 million) remained unpaid.[37] In its response, NDTV denied any "default on any loan to ICICI or any other bank", while attaching a picture of the bank's 2009 letter that confirmed that the "entire amount due," amounting to ₹375 crore (US$53 million), had "been repaid in full."[38] It added that, "No matter how much the politicians attack us - We will not give up the fight for freedom and the independence of media in India."[39]

gollark: ++dial YanksTowelBegin
gollark: ++ is the live prefix.
gollark: -- is the test prefix.
gollark: That seems bad, ubq.
gollark: When someone dials your channel, you say "yes, take call" or "no, decline call".

References
  1. "Audited Financial Results For The Quarter and Year Ended March 2020" (PDF). Retrieved 26 January 2020.
  2. "Annual Report Report 2018-19" (PDF). Retrieved 7 April 2020.
  3. Zachariah, Reena (14 June 2019). "Sebi bars NDTV promoters Prannoy, Radhika Roy from accessing securities markets for 2 years". The Economic Times. Retrieved 14 June 2019.
  4. "SEBI bars Prannoy, Radhika Roy from NDTV board". The Hindu. 14 June 2019. Retrieved 14 June 2019.
  5. "NDTV interim CEO Suparna Singh resigns after CBI books promoters for alleged FDI norms violation".
  6. Batabyal, Somnath; Chowdhry, Angad; Gaur, Meenu; Pohjonen, Matti (11 April 2013). Indian Mass Media and the Politics of Change. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-19665-2.
  7. Shrivastava, K. M. Broadcast Journalism. Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd. pp. 36–37. ISBN 978-81-207-3597-2.
  8. "NDTV - The Company". www.ndtv.com. Retrieved 17 March 2017.
  9. NextBigWhat (15 October 2018). "NDTV launches Hop Live, mobile-only LIVE channel with vertical format videos". www.nextbigwhat.com. Retrieved 15 October 2018.
  10. "NDTV CEO Changes - The Economic Times". Retrieved 29 October 2016.
  11. "'Hardly new', says former NDTV anchor Barkha Dutt after channel takes down Jay Shah story".
  12. "NDTV interim CEO Suparna Singh resigns". The Hindu. 22 August 2019.
  13. "NDTV and Prannoy Roy – Once Upon a Time " Zoom Indian Media". Zoomindianmedia.wordpress.com. 14 February 2011. Retrieved 26 May 2012.
  14. "How Zee Is Shooting Star | Saibal Chatterjee". Outlookindia.com. 22 September 1997. Retrieved 26 May 2012.
  15. "Mandarins' Murdoch mission likely to end up in smoke". Expressindia.com. 9 July 1998. Retrieved 26 May 2012.
  16. "Sorry". Indianexpress.com. Archived from the original on 16 April 2010. Retrieved 26 May 2012.
  17. "www.outlookindia.com - How Zee Is Shooting Star". outlookindia.com. Archived from the original on 10 September 2015. Retrieved 16 September 2015.
  18. "www.outlookindia.com - Star Crossed". Outlook. Archived from the original on 10 September 2015. Retrieved 16 September 2015.
  19. B S Arun (27 November 2010). "Radia tapes: Scandal in the media". Deccan Herald. Retrieved 31 December 2017.
  20. "The Ratan Tata, Barkha Dutt & Other Tapes". Outlook. 18 November 2010. Retrieved 16 September 2015.
  21. "NDTV Statement On Barkha Dutt". NDTV. 15 January 2017. Retrieved 31 December 2017.
  22. "NDTV juggles funds, shares abroad, avoids tax". The Sunday Guardian. 5 December 2010. Retrieved 6 December 2010.
  23. "NDTV Frauds Book Release function at the Constitution Club, New Delhi on March 27, 2017". Retrieved 10 January 2018. Video on YouTube (1h 12m)
  24. "NDTV-ICICI loan chicanery saved Roys". Archived from the original on 2 February 2011. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
  25. "NDTV CEO gives reply, Guardian responds". The Sunday Guardian. 8 December 2010. Archived from the original on 8 December 2010. Retrieved 5 February 2011.
  26. Pandey, Devesh K. (20 November 2015). "ED serves Rs 2,030 crore notice on NDTV for FEMA violations". The Hindu.
  27. "NDTV gets ED notice for alleged FEMA violations". The Indian Express. 20 November 2015.
  28. "NDTV round-tripped Rs 642 crore via shell companies in 2009-2010: Tribunal". The Times of India. 23 July 2017.
  29. "NDTV's Prannoy Roy Says India Has Entered An Era Of McCarthyism". 29 March 2016.
  30. "CAG Report on XIX Commonwealth Games" (PDF). Comptroller & Auditor General of India (Pdf). Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 January 2012.
  31. "CAG blames top media houses in Commonwealth Games Scam". News of Delhi. Archived from the original on 6 January 2012. Retrieved 25 January 2012.
  32. "Games contracts to media houses arbitrary and biased: CAG". India Today.
  33. "NDTV says TV ratings manipulated". The Hindu. 1 August 2012.
  34. "NDTV-TAM imbroglio: highlights of NY Court judgment". Firstpost. Retrieved 18 April 2019.
  35. "Editors say BAN violation of freedom of media". NDTV. 4 November 2016.
  36. Berry, Ellen (5 June 2017). "Raids in India Target Founders of News Outlet Critical of Government". The New York Times. Retrieved 5 June 2017.
  37. "First Information Report" (PDF). Central Bureau of Investigation. cbi.nic.in. 2 June 2017. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 April 2018. Retrieved 5 June 2017.
  38. "The NDTV Saga and Indian Journalism". Anupamtimes. Retrieved 7 June 2017.
  39. "Updated Statement From NDTV On CBI Raids". NDTV. 5 June 2017. Archived from the original on 5 June 2017. Retrieved 5 June 2017.

Bibliography

Media related to NDTV at Wikimedia Commons

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