South Korea’s GS Home Shopping, the world’s third largest home shopping network (as per this release), will invest $18.5 million in HomeShop18, a Network18 subsidiary. GS will hold 15% stake in the company post the investment. Parent Network18 will invest $5 million and will continue to be a majority shareholder…

Roshan Tamang, VP for news, sports and entertainment at Web18, has resigned. This is his last week at the Network18 Group firm. Tamang confirmed the development, but would not say where he was headed. According to a source, Tamang is joining Indiatimes as VP. We are awaiting comment from an…

For the past few months, Star Plus, Zee and Colors have been playing musical chairs with the top three slots in GEC ratings, with marketshares of all three channels mostly falling in the 18-22% range. Colors has broken away for the first time this week, with a lead of 7…

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Growth Partners, an investment fund owned by Finnish mobile handset maker Nokia Oyj, has invested $10 million (Rs48 crore) in Web18 Holdings, the Internet arm of Television Eighteen India Ltd. TV18, part of the Network18 Group, is the sole shareholder in Web18. Other details of the deal…

Business news channel NDTV Profit and business daily The Financial Express are in talks to forge a content partnership. NDTV Profit is run by Prannoy Roy-headed broadcaster NDTV Ltd and The Financial Express is published by The Indian Express Ltd, which also publishes the eponymous broadsheet. Spokespersons at both companies…

In exactly two months from launch, ET Now, the business news channel from Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd, has toppled NDTV Profit to become the second most viewed channel in Metros. According to latest data from TAM Media Research, for the week ended 15 August, ET Now had a 26%…

Network18 Holdings, a subsidiary of Raghav Bahl-promoted Network18 Media and Investments Ltd, will acquire a majority in The Indian Film Company Ltd, an AIM, London-listed producer of blockbuster Bollywood films such as Jab We Met, Welcome, Singh is Kinng, Golmaal Returns and Ghajini. Network18 Media informed the Bombay Stock Exchange…

When Colors was launched this day last year, messrs Raghav Bahl, Haresh Chawla and Rajesh Kamat of Network18 were repeatedly asked: do you think there is space for yet another general entertainment channel (GEC) in India? It had seemed like they were late entrants trying to squeeze into a narrow…

Television Eighteen India Ltd has posted a consolidated net loss of Rs40.6 crore, more than four times from the net loss of Rs9 crore during the corresponding quarter last fiscal on higher expenditure. Revenues in the flagship news operations fell 24% to Rs56.8 crore. Total expenditure grew 41% to Rs103.5…

After a rather long wait, ET Now, the fourth English business news channel in India, went on air this morning as part of a phased rollout and is available on some of the major cable networks. ET Now is broadcast by Times Global Broadcasting Co. Ltd, a subsidiary of Bennett,…

Thirty four-year-old Rishi Khiani, who sold his Urban Eye Media to Network18 Media and Investments Ltd in 2006, has stepped down as chief operating officer at Web18. The Internet arm of Network18 has another COO in Joyson Thomas. “Rishi has decided to move on after completing his three-year contract. He…

Network18 Media and Investments Ltd, the Raghav Bahl-promoted holding company of the Network18 group, today said it has raised Rs204.92 crore through a qualified institutional placement. In a statement to the Bombay Stock Exchange, the company said its board has approved the issue of 1,57,62,889 equity shares of Rs5 each…

Hong Kong-based, Asia-focussed private equity firm SAIF Partners, which has in the past invested in Indian companies such as Homeshop18, Makemytrip.com, Sify and Just Dial, will infuse Rs120 crore into Network18 Media and Investments Ltd, Raghav Bahl-promoted (pictured right) holding company of the Network18 Group, which has subsidiaries such as…

News Corp.-owned Star Plus, which reigned on top of the GEC ratings chart undisputed for nearly a decade, has now slipped to the third position, not only beaten by new entrant Colors, but also by decade-old rival Zee TV, which has been playing catch up with Star Plus for several…

This week, two of the most recognized business news brands made their India debut. A facsimile edition of The Wall Street Journal Asia hit newsstands on Monday and Forbes, the magazine of the rich, launched its India edition yesterday. Most of Forbes India content is available online on business.in.com. The…

News channels take elections very seriously. Election coverage is to general news channels what budget coverage is to business channels—the definitive event that establishes the street-cred of a channel. The ratings on that day also determines the bragging rights to being the channel that is ‘most trusted’ when it matters…

Network18 Media and Investments Ltd, the group holding company of Raghav Bahl-promoted Network18 group, is in discussions with foreign financial investors for a stake sale to raise Rs300 crore, according to a company official familiar with the development. The official asked not to be named. The company’s listed subsidiary, TV18…

It comes once in five years and the minute by minute swing in fortunes and the import of the whole affair makes it a television event way more thrilling than 20/20 cricket. Not surprisingly, as counting began for the general elections to the 15th Lok Sabha, India was glued to…

Reacting to the outcome of general elections that were known Saturday, India’s markets breached the upper circuit within a minute of opening trade on Monday and had to be halted for the day when they were reopened two hours later. In country-wide elections, whose results were announced on Saturday, the…