NDTV

New Delhi Television Limited

Type	Public company
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) Vikramaditya Chandra (CEO)
Products	Broadcasting, website, mobile applications
Revenue	₹4.96 billion (US$74 million) (2014)[1]
Number of employees	1,491 (2014)
Website	www.ndtv.com

New Delhi Television Limited (NDTV) is an Indian commercial broadcasting television network 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.^[2] Vikramaditya Chandra is the chief executive officer of the NDTV Group. KVL Narayan Rao is the Executive Vice Chairperson.^[3]

New Delhi Television has offices and studios across the country. Its three national news channels NDTV 24x7 (English), NDTV India (Hindi) and NDTV Profit (Business news) form the core of the company. Each year the channel also gives the NDTV Indian of the year awards.

Channels of NDTV Group

Channels of NDTV Group are:

• NDTV 24x7 – English News channel.
• NDTV India – Hindi News channel.
• NDTV Profit – Business News channel.
• NDTV Good Times – Lifestyle channel

International

• ATN NDTV 24x7
• NDTV Worldwide
• NDTV Convergence – Website, Mobile Applications
• Indianroots – Indian Ethnic e-commerce venture.^[4]

Notable personalities

• Vikram A Chandra, Group CEO^[5]
• Barkha Dutt, Consulting Editor
• Sonia Singh, Editorial Director
• Pankaj Pachauri (former senior editor of NDTV India, left NDTV to join PMO as Media Advisor)^[6]
• Ravish Kumar, Editor of NDTV India.
• Rahul Narvekar, CEO of Indianroots NDTV Ethnic Retail
• Ambika Anand

Initiatives

NDTV organises campaigns through its channels to support education, rural electrification, and awareness on climate change. They are also known for their affiliation with the Left parties in India

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.^[7][8] 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.^[9]
• 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.^[10] 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.^[11] 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.^[12]
• 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".^[13]
• 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.^[13]
• 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.^[14]
• 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.^[15]

Cases and 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 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.^{[16][17][18][19][20][21]}

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.^[22] 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.^[23] 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.

Allegation of tax fraud

NDTV, through its foreign subsidiaries, is alleged to have violated Indian tax and corporate laws.^[24] 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 19 November 2015 the ED served ₹2030 crore (US$300 million) notice to NDTV for alleged violations under the FEMA act,^[25] however the company said it has been advised that the allegations are not "legally tenable".^[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]

Biased and Sensational Reporting

NDTV has been criticized for biased reporting against certain political outfits in India. They have also been regularly accused of sensationalizing news reports. On March 8, 2014 a purported tweet against Narendra Modi attributed to BJP leader Sushma Swaraj resulted in the party boycotting all panel discussions on NDTV and its supporters accusing the channel of attempting to create a split in the party through false news. The controversy prompted NDTV editor Barkha Dutt to also apologise on Twitter and say that the tweet had been incorrectly attributed to the BJP leader. ^[31] Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad has frequently accused the channel of sensationalizing news reports.

References

1. "New Delhi Television Consolidated Balance Sheet, New Delhi Television Financial Statement & Accounts". moneycontrol.com. Retrieved 16 September 2015.
2. "News Delhi TV". ndtv.com. Retrieved 18 September 2006.
3. Bhat, Varada. "NDTV rejigs management". New Delhi: ndtv. Retrieved 15 July 2012.
4. Apurva Chaudhary. "NDTV Launches E-Commerce Platform Indianroots.com". MediaNama. Retrieved 16 September 2015.
5. "Vikram Chandra". NDTV.
6. "Pankaj Pachauri". The Hindu.
7. "Save Our Tiger Campaign". WWF India.
8. "Save Our Tiger". NDTV.
9. "Save Our Tiger". NDTV.
10. "Support My School Campaign". NDTV.
11. "Sachin Tendulkar: Joined NDTV "Support My School Campaign"".
12. "Support my school". NDTV.
13. "NDTV-Nirmal Lifestyle launch Marks for Sports under the Fit India movement". Business Standard.
14. "Save India's cost". NDTV.
15. "Green Champion | NDTV-Godrej Green Champion". Green Champion. Retrieved 2015-10-16.
16. "NDTV and Prannoy Roy – Once Upon a Time " Zoom Indian Media". Zoomindianmedia.wordpress.com. 14 February 2011. Retrieved 26 May 2012.
17. "How Zee Is Shooting Star | Saibal Chatterjee". Outlookindia.com. 22 September 1997. Retrieved 26 May 2012.
18. "Mandarins' Murdoch mission likely to end up in smoke". Expressindia.com. 9 July 1998. Retrieved 26 May 2012.
19. "Sorry". Indianexpress.com. Retrieved 26 May 2012.
20. "www.outlookindia.com - How Zee Is Shooting Star". outlookindia.com. Retrieved 16 September 2015.
21. "www.outlookindia.com - Star Crossed". Outlook. Retrieved 16 September 2015.
22. B S Arun. "Radia tapes: Scandal in the media". Deccanherald.com. Retrieved 26 May 2012.
23. "The Ratan Tata, Barkha Dutt & Other Tapes - Nov 18,2010". Outlook. Retrieved 16 September 2015.
24. "NDTV juggles funds, shares abroad, avoids tax". The Sunday Guardian. 5 December 2010. Retrieved 6 December 2010.
25. "ED serves Rs 2,030 crore notice on NDTV for FEMA violations". The Hindu. 20 November 2015.
26. "NDTV gets ED notice for alleged FEMA violations". The Indian Express. 20 November 2015.
27. "CAG Report on XIX Commonwealth Games" (PDF). Comptroller & Auditor General of India (Pdf).
28. "CAG blames top media houses in Commonwealth Games Scam". News of Delhi.
29. "Games contracts to media houses arbitrary and biased: CAG". India Today.
30. "NDTV says TV ratings manipulated". The Hindu. 1 August 2012.
31. "BJP's decision to boycott NDTV shows its seriousness about social media". First Post.

External links

• Official website (Mobile)
• NDTV on Twitter
• NDTV on Facebook
• ndtv's channel on YouTube
• NDTV Worldwide
• NDTV Breaking News NDTV Social feeds