News Broadcasting
FT, London picks up 13.8% stake in Business Standard
NEW DELHI: Financial Times (FT) of London will be picking up 13. 8 per cent stake in Business Standard Ltd (BSL), a subsidiary of Kotak Mahindra Finance Ltd, which publishes Business Standard newspaper. The UK media company will invest Rs 141 million in BS.
The London Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange-listed Pearson owns the FT Group. Editor and CEO of BS, TN Ninan confirmed the move to indiantelevision.com stating, “The initial agreement has been just signed.”
Though Ninan did not specify the amount of investment that would be made in BSL by the foreign partner, he did admit that the investment would be made “directly by FT or an affiliate”.
“Subsequent agreements and other details are still to be worked out,” Ninan added.
BS is the second newspaper to have said that it has finalized foreign investment after the investment norms were liberalised last year by the government. Recently, Hindustan Times had announced that it was tying up with Hendersen Global for bringing in 20 per cent of foreign investment in a new company called HT Media. It envisages activity in radio, dissemination of news and information, television, Internet, video films, magazines and books, besides newspapers soon.
The others who have evinced interest in either setting up shop in India or tying up with an India media company, include US business magazine BusinessWeek, Par Golf from Exposure Media and Intelligent Computing Chip from TBW Publishing. All of them are interested in starting an Indian edition through licence agreements with the parent companies.
It is not known whether a tie-up with FT would be extended to renewed TV forays or in other specialty magazine segment by BS. But it is expected that after having tied up with Ananda Bazaar Patrika group for Star News venture, Star/News Corp may make an entry into print medium too.
Pearson is an international media company with market-leading businesses in education, business information and consumer publishing. The FT Group is the most international source of business and political news and analysis.
Pearson is listed on the London (PSON) and New York (PSO) Stock Exchanges. In 2002 the company had sales of $6,955 million and operating profits of $794 million.
News Broadcasting
Times Network to air JVC Exit Poll across 5 regions on April 29
Four-hour broadcast spans states and Puducherry with data-led analysis
MUMBAI: Times Network is set to roll out what it calls one of its most expansive election programming efforts yet, culminating in the JVC Exit Poll on 29 April, with a multi-hour broadcast spanning key poll-bound regions.
The exit poll will air across Times Now and Times Now Navbharat, beginning at 5pm and 4pm respectively. Co-powered by Vedanta and Jindal Stainless, the programming aims to combine on-ground reportage with data-driven projections across West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry.
The network has deployed over 50 journalists across these regions, gathering voter sentiment and local insights in the run-up to polling. The effort builds on its ongoing election formats such as Election Yatra and Election Premier League, which have tracked campaign narratives and community-level issues.
In parallel, Times Now Navbharat has focused on constituency-level reporting in West Bengal through its Jan Gan ka Mann series, capturing voter opinions across diverse segments.
The coverage has also featured interviews with prominent political leaders. Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Congress leaders Ramesh Chennithala and V D Satheesan have appeared on the network’s election specials. From Tamil Nadu, voices including deputy chief minister Udhayanidhi Stalin, DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran, BJP leader K Annamalai and NTK’s Seeman have also featured in discussions.
On the day of the exit poll, the network’s primetime anchors, including Navika Kumar, Zakka Jacob and Sumit Awasthi, will lead the coverage. They will be joined by a panel of political analysts, psephologists and senior journalists offering real-time insights and interpretation of trends.
The programming will integrate grassroots reportage with analytics from the JVC Exit Poll, aiming to give viewers an early sense of electoral outcomes ahead of the official results on 4 May.
With its combined English and Hindi broadcast reach, Times Network is positioning this effort as a comprehensive look at voter sentiment, blending field reporting, data and debate to decode what could lie ahead when the final mandate is revealed.
