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Our Bureau

Company embarks on a `Big Bang' approach

Dr Prannoy Roy

New Delhi , Oct. 17

New Delhi Television Ltd has announced a new company NDTV Ventures to represent their expansion plans into areas "beyond news," primarily in the entertainment and lifestyle, and the new media verticals.

The company looks to grow to $500 million in five years, and thus has embarked on what the company calls its `Big Bang' approach.

"The greatest challenge to our expansion had been finding the right structure. As a news company, finding funds was difficult, the new model has unlocked those constraints," said Dr Prannoy Roy, Chairman and Wholetime Director, NDTV Ltd.

Entertainment Channel

NDTV ventures, a 100 per cent subsidiary, will be divided into a Hindi mass entertainment channel and NDTV New Media, with its businesses poised to become independent companies in the future. "Hindi mass entertainment has the highest revenue growth and is the least clustered," said Dr Roy. The entertainment channel will be free to air for the first two years.

As the fourth largest Indian portal on the Internet, NDTV along with its convergence plans for mobiles and news on radio (once regulations allow that) also expects its technology divisions to take off under NDTV New Media. The company is already in a joint venture with Genpact providing media outsourcing solutions. It has also started selling its software and technological innovations developed in-house under NDTV Lab.

`Metronation'

Dr Roy also announced `Metronation,' four city-based channels that will cater to retail boom-driven advertising aimed at individual city audiences. The media house is considering taking its business channel NDTV Profit, both overseas and regional.

"We have the ability to leverage our strengths, and look to capture the future trend of a triple play, a combination of TV, Internet and mobile," said Mr Vikram Chandra, CEO NDTV.com, expounding on the company's vision for the next few years. "We are also uniquely positioned to be a global Indian media brand, since we have no encumbrances of tie-up with any international brand," said Mr Chandra.

More Stories on : New Projects | Radio/TV

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