Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee delivered a budget that brought some cheer and some additional taxation to the media sector. Key points: 1) Fringe Benefit Tax abolished: This was a key demand from many players in contentSutra’s Wishlist For The New I&B Minister. Many key overheads for media houses, such as…

Dish TV India Ltd, India’s largest direct-to-home service provider by subscribers, today said net loss for the quarter ended 31 March was down 31% y-o-y at Rs78.66 crore on higher revenues. Total income grew 51% y-o-y to Rs207.13 crore. For the fiscal ended 31 March, consolidated net loss widened by…

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,…

Ajay Vidyasagar, who stepped down at Star India as president, content and new media, in March, has been named chief operating officer at Sun TV Network Ltd, one of India’s largest listed media companies. We had reported earlier about speculation that Vidyasagar was joining the Chennai-based broadcaster. Sun broadcasts 20…

Sony (NYSE: SNE) Entertainment Television, which recently launched a new line up of shows after the end of the Indian Premier League, which was telecast on its sister channel SET Max, will soon add an international format reality show from Britain’s ITV (LSE: ITV). I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out…

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 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…

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…

Balaji Telefilms Ltd, the Mumbai-based producer of television software, posted its first quarterly loss yesterday. The company swung from a net profit of Rs23.85 crore for Q408 to a net loss of Rs14.62 crore for the corresponding quarter this fiscal. Consolidated net profit dropped 99.14% from Rs95.59 crore, to Rs47…

NDTV Metronation Chennai, a local news and features channel being run by a JV between broadcaster NDTV Ltd and Kasturi & Sons Ltd, the publisher of The Hindu, has done its soft launch and is on air for viewers in Chennai. This is the second channel in the Metronation franchise,…

NDTV Imagine, the general entertainment channel owned by NDTV and NBC Universal (NYSE: GE) (26%), is set to launch a new reality show that is certain to be controversial and will hopefully give it a boost up the ratings chart. In Rakhi Ka Swayamvar, a new reality show set for…

Broadcaster NDTV Ltd said yesterday that it has launched a production house—RedDot Productions—that will create content both for the group’s channels as well as external clients. From a release: “RedDot Productions will offer a whole array of services like- Documentaries, Corporate Films, Advertiser-driven Audio-Visuals, Media Consultancy, Learning Aids, Spots &…

As elections draw closer and English news channels are going full throttle with election coverage, we thought it might be interesting to look at the ratings chart. Times Now, the news channel from The Times of India group, seems to be consolidating on top. This week, it had a channel…

After weeks of see-sawing and conflicting reports, there is finally clarity on the future of the Indian Premier League, the popular 20-20 cricket tournament. It will be held in South Africa between April 18 and May 24. In all, 59 matches will be played. The games will be telecast at…

NewsX, the 24-hour news channel that was recently sold by Peter and Indrani Mukerjea (INX Media Pvt Ltd) to Vinay Chhajlani and Jehangir Pocha (Indi Media Co. Pvt Ltd), will sport a new name, Logo and on-air look by June. The rebranding exercise will be handled by TAG, a second…

Real, the general entertainment channel born out of a joint venture between India’s Alva Brothers Entertainment and global entertainment major Turner Broadcasting, is off to a rather poor ratings start. According to data from audience measurement firm TAM Media Research Pvt. Ltd, Real managed just 9 GRPs for its launch…

Looks like Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) is winding up OurCity. The homepage now carries the following message, which also appears on top of every search page. Yahoo! India Our City will be going off the air on 18th Feb 2009. We have incorporated successes within Our City, into our new offering…

Shares of Essel Group’s cable company, Wire and Wireless India Ltd, went up 77.43% during intraday trading on Wednesday on the Bombay Stock Exchange, to close at Rs17.14, in a high volume trade that baffled analysts. 60 million shares were traded during the day. The other Essel Group company, direct-to-home…