New Delhi Television Ltd (NDTV) is an Indian news media company focusing on broadcast and digital news publication. It was founded in 1984 by economist Prannoy Roy and journalist Radhika Roy.
NDTV began as a production house for news segments, contracted by the public broadcaster Doordarshan and international satellite channels when television broadcasting was a state monopoly, and transitioned into India's first independent news network. The company launched the first 24x7 news channel in partnership with Star India in 1998. In 2003, it became an independent broadcasting network with the simultaneous launch of the Hindi and English language news channels NDTV India and NDTV 24x7 (now known as simply NDTV).
In 2022, the Adani Group acquired a majority stake in the company.
History 1984–1998: Doordarshan era In 1984, the journalist Radhika Roy and her husband, economist Prannoy Roy, founded New Delhi Television. The company began as a production house of news segments for the public broadcaster Doordarshan and international satellite news channels. It was converted into a commercial news network in 1988, and became India's first independent television news network. Doordarshan gave the network a weekly broadcast, The World This Week, an international news magazine programme commissioned by the director general of the public broadcaster, Bhaskar Ghose. The weekly news bulletin was described as an instant hit among its Indian viewers.
Doordarshan then contracted the network by to produce coverage of the Indian general elections and budget session specials, which also became widely popular. The first election result telecast NDTV produced was that of the 1989 Indian general election, which was also the first televised live coverage of an election result in India. It employed hotlines across the country and featured visual graphics, discussions and debates. The format NDTV developed contrasted with the simple official announcements Doordarshan publicised in previous elections and was adopted as a template by news broadcasters over the following decades. The terms of agreement between Doordarshan and NDTV were modified in the same year and the company began paying a fee for its weekly slot instead of being a contractor under the public broadcaster. During the initial years, there was a delay of 10 minutes between telecast and production of live news due to government regulations, which later shifted to five minutes.
The World This Week aired till 1995 on Fridays at 10:00 pm, and was described as "the only India-based programme which looked out at the rest of the world". In 1993, CNN began collaborating with NDTV to produce select coverage for the weekly news bulletin. The weekly was the first privately produced news bulletin in India, and became one of Doordarshan's top-rated programmes. Prannoy Roy said it was not difficult to appear good in comparison to Doordarshan, which he described as more radio than television, and said it helped that the time period was the "newsiest" in television history. The news bulletin covered several major events, such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and breakup of Yugoslavia, some of which NDTV covered live from their respective countries.
In 1995, NDTV presented a proposal to Doordarshan to move its production to a daily half-hour news bulletin on the second Doordarshan channel, DD Metro. The proposal was accepted and the bulletin, News Tonight, launched. The Roys approached five major Indian business houses for investments and secured agreements with all five, including the Tata Group. The bulletin was India's first daily domestic news broadcast The company also began producing shows such as The News Hour and Good Morning India for Doordarshan. Prannoy Roy anchored the NDTV news bulletins, in the process acquiring a reputation for reliable, authentic and sophisticated news reporting. The news bulletins gained credibility and were competing with entertainment channels for viewers, which made the network sought after for partnerships by international news networks such as BBC and Rupert Murdoch's Star Network at a time when restrictions on private participation in television broadcasting were being lifted and Doordarshan's monopoly broken by satellite television.
In 1997, Doordarshan director general Rathikant Basu left the public broadcaster and joined its multinational rival, the Star Network. His resignation led to a call to scrutinise his activities during his tenure as director general. A parliamentary committee was assigned to examine Doordarshan's finances. It alleged "irregularities" in its dealings with NDTV. On 20 January 1998, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed several cases against Basu, five other officials of the public broadcaster, and Prannoy Roy. The cases went on for several years in the form of a protracted dispute, until CBI filed a closure report in 2013 and the Delhi High Court quashed the charges, ruling that there was no evidence of wrongdoing.
1998–2003: Rupert Murdoch and Star News In 1998, NDTV entered into five-year contract with Rupert Murdoch's Star Network. Under the terms of the agreement, NDTV would produce all news content for the network, while News Television India (subsidiary of Murdoch's News Corporation) would finance the endeavor. The CEO of Star India had stated that NDTV was an obvious choice for a partnership due its recognition and infrastructure. Star News was launched in February 1998 and was the first independent 24x7 news channel in India. It was a bilingual channel and aired both Hindi and English language programs. NDTV productions were also slotted on two 9:00 pm news bulletins in the channels of Star Plus and Star World. In 1999, NDTV launched its own news website called ndtv.com which streamed live webcasts of its productions and generated 55,000 daily views within a month of its launch. Over the following years, it also made its first foray into regional markets and began a Tamil language news bulletin on Vijay TV, a channel owned by the Star Network.
Star News was an immediate success, its revenue made the channel break-even at the onset. Star India was also able to capitalise on the experience gained in NDTV's earlier collaboration with CNN, one of its multinational competitors. The financial support provided by the multinational gave the channel an advantage over its emerging competitors such as , the Hindi language channel founded by Living Media. Prannoy Roy remained as the face of the network while Radhika Roy, who was known for being low profile, operated the editorial process and reportedly demanded high standards for credibility, impartiality and independence. The channel developed sophisticated production values and a reputation for journalistic integrity. In a study conducted with Indian journalists, Star News was found to be perceived as the most professionally produced among Indian networks and was regularly viewed by a majority of journalists alongside Doordarshan and BBC World.
In the partnership, NDTV was given editorial independence, and produced the entire editorial content including in its packaging and presentation. It was noted that the channel occasionally used its own branded equipment such as microphones with NDTV imprints, without any dispute. Under the agreement, the profits belonged to Star News and NDTV was paid a fee which began with US$10 million under an escalation clause and reserved intellectual property rights over its productions. This arrangement reportedly became an issue of contention between the sales team of Star India which were under pressure to generate revenues and NDTV which intended to maintain in its editorial independence. In 2000, the NDTV news bulletin on Star Plus was removed, which was speculated to have been a signifier of the closeted conflict.
In an anecdotal testimony, Peter Mukerjea who was CEO of Star India between 1999 and 2007, states that an advertiser with the network who was the chairman of a major textile company had complained to him about a news report about environmental issues in a town which operated one of their plants and held Star India responsible for the reporters not taking into account the views of the company. Star News covered the 2002 Gujarat riots with investigative reports, in-depth analyses and live reporting of events. The channel's coverage resulted in it being blacked out for a day by the Gujarat Government under Narendra Modi. The censorship came a day after the Minister of Law, Arun Jaitley had accused "some networks" of conspiracy against the government on a live telecast of Zee News, a network that had assured him that they were not such networks on the same telecast.
In 2002, Star was willing to continue the contract but without complete editorial control being granted to NDTV which was unacceptable to the Roys. In the end, the negotiations between NDTV and Star India fell apart and the contract was not renewed. NDTV kept producing news segments for Star News till 31 March 2003. The company's unwillingness to succumb to government pressure or pro right wing editorial intervention from Rupert Murdoch, cemented his decision to exit the partnership as well. Murdoch went on secure a partnership with the Anandabazar Patrika Group for Star News, which was converted into a Hindi language news channel, and was noted to have become far less critical in its news coverage following the transition.
2003–2007: Independent broadcasting network Following the end of the partnership with Star India, NDTV began its venture as an independent broadcaster. The company had acquired equity capital from investment banks including Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Standard Chartered invested US$12 million and acquired a share of 12% in the company. Media commentators at the time had speculated that Star News would remain the market leader and decimate NDTV. Before the launch of the network's independent channels under its own brand, it had invested US$25 million into advertising. For distribution, it entered into a tie up with the network of One Alliance, a joint venture between Sony and Discovery, Inc.
NDTV launched two channels, NDTV India and NDTV 24x7, in 2003. NDTV India was a Hindi language news channel and NDTV 24x7 was an English language news channel. Soon after its launch NDTV 24x7 became the frontrunner in the English news segment, while NDTV India had the second-highest viewership following Aaj Tak in the Hindi language segment, which pushed Star News to the place of fourth highest viewership in the process. The channels introduced the concept of "break away" broadcasting in India with integrated receiver decoder (IRD) which could provide segmented region or city-specific news and with optional local language dubbings to viewers of the same channel. In 2004, NDTV became a publicly traded company and the board members reportedly included N. R. Narayana Murthy, the founder of Infosys and Tarun Das, the chief mentor of the Confederation of Indian Industry as independent directors. In December 2004, it stood as the media company with the highest market capitalisation, at a valuation of .