NDTV

New Delhi Television Limited

Type	Public
Traded as	BSE: 532529, NSE: NDTV
Industry	Media
Founded	1988
Founder	Radhika Roy Prannoy Roy
Headquarters	New Delhi, India
Area served	India
Key people	Prannoy Roy (Co-chairperson) Radhika Roy (Co-chairperson) K. V. L. Narayan Rao (Executive Vice-chairperson) K. V. L. Narayan Rao (CEO)[1]
Products	Broadcasting, web portals
Revenue	₹576 crore (US$90 million) (2016)[2]
Number of employees	1,491 (2016)
Website	www.ndtv.com

New Delhi Television Limited (NDTV) is an Indian television media company founded in 1988 by husband and wife Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy. NDTV is an acronym for the original name of the company, New Delhi Television, produced and owned by South Africa's Urban Brew Studios.^[3]

Channels operating

Channels of NDTV Group are: ^[4]

• NDTV 24x7 – 24-hour English news channel.
• NDTV India – 24-hour Hindi news channel.
• NDTV Profit – Business news channel.
• NDTV Good Times – Lifestyle channel.
• ATN NDTV 24x7

Notable personalities

• Vikram A Chandra, Consulting Editor^[1]
• Sonia Singh, Editorial Director
• Ravish Kumar, Editor of NDTV India.
• Abhigyan Prakash, Executive Editor of NDTV India.
• Rahul Narvekar, CEO of Indianroots NDTV Ethnic Retail

Initiatives

NDTV organises campaigns through its channels to support education, rural electrification, and awareness on climate change. Some of its campaigns are as follows:

• Greenathon: An event to generate money to spread awareness on climate change and rural electrification. It was supported by many actors such as Priyanka Chopra, Shah Rukh Khan, Karan Johar. There have been two successful seasons of Greenathon campaign in 2010 and 2011 resulting in donations of more than 130 million Rupees. It is also sponsored by automaker Toyota.
• Save Our Tiger Campaign: This campaign was launched on 30 January 2010 by Indian telecom company Aircel in partnership with NDTV and WWF-India. The goal was to create awareness among Indians about the rapidly decreasing tiger population in India. The first year of the NDTV campaign culminated in a 12-hour telethon. During the telethon, people appealed to political leaders and the masses to do whatever they could to help safeguard the Indian tiger. As a result of the campaign, several prominent political leaders came on air and pledged to protect the forests of their respective states.^[5][6] During the telethon 19.9 million rupees were raised through donations. The funds collected were donated to "Rapid Response Units (RRU)" to equip and train forest departments to respond during emergency situations like man-animal conflict, anti-poaching patrolling, fire-fighting among others.^[7]
• Support My School Campaign: On 24 January 2011 NDTV in partnership with Coca-Cola India, CAF and UN-Habitat launched the "Support My School" campaign.^[8] The motive of this telethon was to create awareness on water and sanitation, environment and healthy active living. Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar was the brand ambassador of this campaign.^[9] On 18 September 2011 an event was organised to support education in rural India. It was supported by Sachin Tendulkar and Bollywood Actor Sanjay Dutt. The event generated more than 72 million Rupees to fund the needs of more than 140 schools.^[10]
• Fit India Movement: On 16 March 2011 NDTV and Nirmal Lifestyle launched a long-term campaign: Fit India Movement. The purpose of this movement is to change the way Indians think about their fitness and make India a healthy nation. The "Mission-1" of this movement was "Marks for Sports".^[11]
• Marks for Sports: This initiative was launched on 16 March 2011 under the "Fit India Movement" of NDTV and Nirmal Lifestyle. The goal of is to push for inclusion of sports in the school curriculum, hoping that this will make parents encourage their children to take up sports. Actor Ranbir Kapoor, Dr. Prannoy Roy, chairman, NDTV and Dharmesh Jain, chairman and managing director of Nirmal Lifestyle launched this initiative in New Delhi.^[11]
• Save India's Coasts: This campaign was an initiative of NDTV and Toyota Etios. NDTV's crew travelled the entire coast of India, starting in western Gujarat and ending in West Bengal in six weeks, reporting on the issues facing the coast along the way.^[12]
• Green Champion: This campaign was an initiative of NDTV with Godrej. It is India's first environment based reality show, consisting of 13 episodes and 15 contestants who travel across the country to perform green tasks such as installation of solar panel in a rural home, developing a rainwater harvesting system at a rural school, installing a drip irrigation system in a farm. The show is telecasted on 4 channels of NDTV.^[13]

Controversies

Allegation of corruption and criminal conspiracy

On 20 January 1998 Central Bureau of Investigation filed 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.^{[14][15][16][17][18][19]}

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.^[20] 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.^[21] She always denied her role in this episode with stating her role as simply error of judgment. Barkha Dutt is being investigated by the CBI. Dutt left the channel in January 2017.^[22]

Allegation of tax fraud

NDTV, through its foreign subsidiaries, is alleged to have violated Indian tax and corporate laws.^[23] NDTV has denied these allegations. []

The Sunday Guardian ran a story which exposed the NDTV's financial misdemeanours and malpractices in connivance with ICICI Bank. "NDTV-ICICI loan chicanery saved Roys" provides details of how NDTV's major stake holders raised funds by misdeclaration of the value of shares in NDTV. NDTV has denied the allegations and the NDTV CEO replied to the Sunday Guardian along with the threat of "criminal defamation". On 5th June 2017, the House of Prannoy Roy was raided by NIA and CBI.

On 19 November 2015 the ED served ₹2,030 crore (US$320 million) notice to NDTV for alleged violations under the FEMA act,^[24] however the company said it has been advised that the allegations are not "legally tenable".^[25]

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 Rs 642 crore during 2009-10, making them liable for recovery of tax and penalty.^[26]

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 Rs 37.8 million for production & broadcasting of commercials for promoting CWG-2010 to NDTV & 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."^[27][28][29]

Suit against TAM India

News broadcaster company sued television audience measurement company, TAM India and its global parent firms for over a billion dollars in the Supreme Court of New York, alleging TAM of manipulating ratings in return for bribes to its officials.^[30]

One Day Ban

On November 4, 2016, the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting ordered the channel to go off air on November 9 for allegedly divulging 'strategically sensitive' details while covering January's deadly attack on the Pathankot air base.^[31] 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.^[32] The complainant, Sanjay Dutt, Director of Quantum Securities Pvt. Ltd., alleged that the Roys took a loan of around ₹350 crore 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 remained unpaid.^[33] 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, had "been repaid in full."^[34] 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."^[35]

While the Minister of Information and Broadcasting Venkaiah Naidu denied involvement in the investigation adding that "this government doesn't believe in interfering", media outlets held the union government responsible for breach of the freedom of the press. Praveen Swami of The Indian Express called the raids "a defining moment", comparing them to the Emergency, when the then prime minister, Indira Gandhi imposed censorship and reporting guidelines amid other restrictions.^[36] In its statement, the Editors Guild of India said that it "condemns any attempt to muzzle the media and calls upon the CBI to follow the due process of law and ensure there is no interference in the free functioning of news operations."^[37] N. K. Singh, a former joint director of the CBI, called it unusual for the CBI to conduct a raid on a media organization and said that that scrutinizing the terms of a loan by a private bank was also unorthodox.^[32]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to NDTV.

• Official website (Mobile)