News Broadcasting
Murdoch’s India visit confirmed
After Star TV Executive Chairman Gareth Chang’s recent resignation, and NewsCorp Arthur Anderson officials have visited India twice to asses the value of Star TV, NewsCorp Chairman Rupert Murdoch plans a five day India visit starting 10th March. His wife Wendy Deng and son James, NewsCorp’s Vice President of Music and New Media will accompany him.
The trip is expected to kick off with a two days in Bangalore, where he expects to kickstart NewsCorp’s joint venture with Pramod Mittal’s Ispat Group company eVentures. eVentures has already invested in two portals recently. Net Access, a Delhi based e-business service provider, where eVentures has invested about US$ 1.75 million acquiring a 26 equity.
The joint venture has also acquired 100 percent equity in netpligrims.com, a web based placement service provider. Besides eVentures deals, Star TV plans 10 to 20 percent in popular portals. The net plans to extend synergies between broadcasting and the Internet, “to increase our access to content and tap the traffic which comes on various sites on the Internet,” said News television India Ltd.’s CEO Peter Mukerjea in a newspaper interview. The strategy is via the mergers and acquisitions route, and plans are to for multi-point distribution including the Internet and mobile communications.
Besides, Murdoch will visit Bombay “to meet his office people” as a spokesman puts it. Also appointments are being arranged with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, State Minister for Information and Broadcasting Arun Jaitley, Minister for Information technology Pramod Mahajan and Opposition leader Sonia Gandhi.
Murdoch’s visit, the first since June 1996 when he met Deve Gowda gains significance. The importance of India in it’s Asian strategy is apparent. NewsCorp has doubled it’s content related investment in India over the next five years. An additional US$ 20 million this year has for it’s Indian operation. Murdoch will seeks a first hand view impression on the Broadcast bill including DTH and other regulatory issues, besides it’s proposed Internet /mobile investments in India.
News Broadcasting
Rajesh Sundaram joins NDTV Profit as senior editor, assignment
The 32-year newsroom veteran has launched channels on three continents and covered everything from 9/11 to South African television
MUMBAI: NDTV Profit has bolstered its newsroom with a hire who has done rather more than most. Rajesh Sundaram, a journalist with over three decades of editorial, managerial and consultative experience across India and international markets, joins as senior editor, assignment, tasked with sharpening the network’s newsgathering and real-time response.
Sundaram’s career reads like a tour of Indian media’s most formative moments. He began at Businessworld in 1994, moved to Zee News as bureau chief across Mumbai and Chennai, then joined NDTV in 2002 as part of its political bureau during a particularly febrile period in Indian politics. A stint as India correspondent for Al Jazeera International followed, where he covered key geopolitical developments and got his first serious taste of the global newsroom.
What sets Sundaram apart, however, is his serial channel-launching habit. At NewsX, he helped get the operation off the ground. At Headlines Today, part of the India Today Group, he served as editor. At News Nation, he helped launch the Hindi news channel and its digital ecosystem. He then crossed continents to lead the launch of ANN7 in South Africa as editor-in-chief, overseeing both television and digital. Back in India, he launched Tamil news channels News7 Tamil and Cauvery News, and later served as principal consultant for the launch of Marathi channel Lokshahi. Most recently, he helped build and lead the Press Trust of India’s video service and content studio, before stints consulting for Business Today and The Himalayan Times.
Rahul Kanwal, chief executive and editor-in-chief of NDTV, left little doubt about what Sundaram is expected to deliver. “The assignment desk is where a newsroom’s intent becomes action,” he said. “Rajesh brings a rare combination of field experience and leadership in building news operations at scale.”
Sundaram has reported from across India and the world, covering elections, civil conflicts, the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and the 2008 US presidential election.
At NDTV Profit, he will lead the assignment desk, driving editorial coordination and real-time response across markets and breaking developments. For a business news network sharpening its focus on speed and multi-platform delivery, it has hired a man who has built newsrooms from scratch on three continents. The assignment desk is in good hands.
