The Politics of Indian Media Houses
All news houses in India barring international media group like Star are owned or affilated to one or the other national (BJP and Congress) or regional parties (DMK & SP). Here is a top list of Indian owned media houses and their influence. Some have influence of both Congress and BJP.
Network 18 — Mukesh Ambani
700 million broadcast viewers and 100 million digital viewership.
Owner: Mukesh Ambani through Independent Media Trust, of which RIL is the sole beneficiary by funding of up to Rs. 40 billion for acquisition of control in Network18 and its subsidiaries. Mukesh Amabani is close to Mr. Modi & BJP top leadership.
News Channels — 16 Channels
Entertainment Channels — 21 Channels (1 OnDemand)
Digital — 7 Websites (4 news, 2 education, 1 Entertainment)
Digital Commerce — 2 Websites (1 Shopping, 1 Show Booking)
Publishing — 5 (1 Newspaper, 4 Magazines)
Motion Pictures — 1 Motion picture studio (Viacom 18 Motion Pictures)
Distribution — 1 (IndiaCast Media Distribution)
Zee Media — Subhash Chandra
325 million broadcast viewers and 60 million digital viewership
Owner: Subhash Chandra, Promoter Essel Group, An aspirant for the BJP ticket from Hisar, in 2014 Haryana Assembly Election, supported BJP candidate Dr. Kamal Gupta against Savitri Jindal, who is the mother of former Congress MP and industrialist Naveen Jindal.
News Channels — 14 News Channels (8 languages)
Newspaper — 1 paper (DNA — Daily News & Analysis)
Website — 1 (dnaindia.com)
Digital Properties — 15 (Mostly News)
THE TIMES GROUP — Sahu Jain
Owner: The company remains a family-owned business as the descendants of Sahu Jain own a majority stake in The Times Group. The Times Group has over 11,000 employees and revenue exceeding $1.5 billion and publishes the largest circulated daily in the world, The Times of India.
News Channels — 3 (English)
News Paper — 15 Newspapers
Online — 1 (India Times — umbrella brand)
Radio — 1 (Radio Mirchi)
Internet — 5 properties
Magazine — 9 Magazines
Music — 1 (Zoom)
Movies — 4 Channels
TV Today — Arun Purie
Readership of over 11 million
The TV Today Network is an English-Hindi news television network based in India. It is listed on the BSE and the NSE and consists of the several news channels
News Channels — 4 (Aaj Tak, India Today TV, Tez)
Magazine — 1 (India Today)
NDTV India — Prannoy & Radhika Roy, Abhey Oswal
Radhika Roy and Prannoy Roy holds around 29.18% stake and 14.17% is owned by Abhey Oswal through Oswal Greentech Limited who is father-in-law of Congress Ex-MP and industrialist Naveen Jindal. Radhika Roy is sister of Rajya Sabha MP Brinda Karat who is wife of CPI(M) General Secretary, Prakash Karat.
Channels — 4 Channels
SUN Group — Kalanithi Maran
Kalanithi Maran holds 77% share of Kal Media Services Pvt. Ltd. Who is the grand nephew of DMK president Karunanidhi.
Channels — 32 Channels (4 languages)
Radio — 64 FM Radio Channels (93.5 Mhz)
Newspaper — 3 Newspaper
Magazines — 6 Magazines
Films — Sun Pictures
News 24 — Anuradha Prasad
Anuradha Prasad managing director of BAG films and wife of Congress Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Shukla. She is the sister of BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad who is present Union Minister of Communications and Information Technology.
IBN Lokmat — Vijay Darda
Marathi news channel owned by Vijay Darda (Congress Rajya Sabha MP) and Rajendra Darda (Congress Ex-MLA in Maharashtra).
India TV
India TV — Rajat Sharma, a former ABVP General Secretary.
India News — Karthikeya Sharma
India News is owned by Karthikeya Sharma, who owns the ITV Media group that operates many news channels including News X. Karthikeya Sharma and Manu Sharma (Convicted in Jessica Lal murder case) are sons of Congress leader Venod Sharma.
Sahara India Parivar — Subrata Roy
Subarta Roy owns a fleet of national and regional news channel who is famous for hosting grand parties in his Sahara City, Lucknow for the entire union or state cabinet, whether it is Atal Bihari Vajpayee government or, socialist Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi party.
ABP — Suresh Chandra Majumdar
In 2003, the contract with NDTV ended and STAR decided to run the channel on its own. However, the government introduced a guideline capping foreign equity in the News business to 26%. STAR then entered into a joint venture with the Ananda Bazar Patrika group to form a company called Media Content and Communications Services Pvt. Ltd. (MCCS) which ran the channel STAR News. STAR owned 26% in this joint venture while the Ananda Bazar Patrika group owned 74%.
Ananda Bazar Patrika (ABP) Group is an Indian media company headquartered in Kolkata, West Bengal. It was established in 1922. Ananda Publishers is a division of ABP Group.
News Channels — 5 (English & Hindi)
Digital News — 1 (ABP Live News)
Newspaper — 3 (1 English, 2 Bengali)
Magazine — 6 ( Including Fortune India)
Star TV — 21st Century Fox — Rupert Murdoch
700 million broadcast viewers across India. Hotstar has one of the largest reach in the digital space for Sports and Entertainment.
Channels — 42 Channels
Motion Pictures — 1 Studio (Fox Star Studios)
Star News was closed and rebranded into ABP News. Star now focuses on Entertainment, Sports and Knowledge and has moved away from News, hence has limited influence in the context of this article.
Asianet News and Suvarna News 24×7 channels are not a part of the STAR India owned Asianet Communications Limited, but comes under the Asianet News Network (ANN) wing of the Jupiter Media. The influence of ANN is limited to a captive Malayali audience across 60 countries.
ANI — Asia News International
Others
Sony, Disney, Times, ETV, Raj TV, Jaya TV, Odisha TV, Discovery, Turner
Any omission is not deliberate. So here is the youngest and final one on the list.
Republic TV — Arnab Goswami
Upto 50% viewership for English News at prime time.
Republic TV is an Indian television news channel. It is owned by ARG Outlier Asianet News (BJP MP Rajeev Chandrashekar), a company whose managing director is Arnab Goswami. It was launched on 6 May 2017.
Channel — 1 (Republic TV)
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