Global Broadcast News
Global Broadcast News (GBN) is an India media corporation under the Network 18 umbrella. The major shareholders apart from the Indian public and foreign and domestic institutions are parent company Network 18, sister company TV18 and a group of professionals including Editor-In-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai and Joint Managing Directors Sameer Manchanda & Haresh Chawla. Sardesai and Manchanda left NDTV to start the company in collaboration with TV18 of which Chawla is CEO.
Market Listing
Global Broadcast News listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange of India on the 8th of February 2007 at a significant premium to its issue price.
Sister Stations
IBN (India Broadcast News)
IBN is the brand name for Global Broadcast News' 24-hour television news stations distributed via cable and DTH. Current IBN offerings include:
- CNN-IBN (English) - A joint venture of Turner Broadcasting and Global Broadcast News which runs the Indian edition of CNN.
- IBN-7 (Hindi) - formerly Channel 7 was acquired from Jagran TV, owned by the Dainik Jagran group of companies, in 2006 and rebranded IBN-7.
- The company has launched its first regional channel, IBN-Lokmat, a Marathi news channel, headed by Nikhil Wagle. The channel is a 50:50 venture between GBN and Lokmat group.
JV with Viacom
On 21 May 2007, American media giant Viacom entered into a 50-50 joint venture with Global Broadcast News to form Viacom 18, which would house Viacom's existing channels in India - MTV, VH1 and Nickelodeon as well as Network 18's movie business. All future Viacom content for India and new ventures such as a Hindi entertainment channel and a Hindi movie channel would be housed in this JV. GEC Colors to be launched was announced by Viacom-18. The channel was launched on July 21, 2008.