New Delhi Television Limited is an Indian commercial broadcasting
television network founded in 1988 by husband and wife Prannoy Roy and Radhika
Roy. NDTV is an acronym for the original name of the company, New Delhi
Television. Vikramaditya Chandra is the chief executive officer of the NDTV
Group. KVL Narayan Rao is the Executive Vice Chairperson.
New Delhi Television has offices and studios across the country. Its three
national news channels NDTV 24x7, NDTV India and NDTV Profit form the core of
the company. Each year the channel also gives the NDTV Indian of the year
awards. Channels of NDTV Group
Channels of NDTV Group are: NDTV 24x7 – English News channel.
NDTV India – Hindi News channel. NDTV Profit – Business News channel.
NDTV Good Times – Lifestyle channel = International =
ATN NDTV 24x7 NDTV Worldwide
NDTV Convergence – Website, Mobile Applications
Indianroots – Indian Ethnic e-commerce venture.
Notable personalities Vikram A Chandra, Group CEO
Barkha Dutt, Group Editor Sonia Singh, Editorial Director
Pankaj Pachauri Ravish Kumar, Editor of NDTV India.
Rahul Narvekar, CEO of Indianroots NDTV Ethnic Retail
Ambika Anand Initiatives
NDTV organises campaigns through its channels to support education, rural
electrification, and awareness on climate change. Some of its campaigns
are as follows: Greenathon: An event to generate money
to spread awareness on climate change and rural electrification. It was
supported by many actors such as Priyanka Chopra, Shah Rukh Khan, Karan
Johar. There have been two successful seasons of Greenathon campaign in 2010
and 2011 resulting in donations of more than 130 million Rupees. It is also
sponsored by automaker Toyota. Save Our Tiger Campaign: This campaign
was launched on 30 January 2010 by Indian telecom company Aircel in
partnership with NDTV and WWF-India. The goal was to create awareness among
Indians about the rapidly decreasing tiger population in India. The first
year of the NDTV campaign culminated in a 12-hour telethon. During the telethon,
people appealed to political leaders and the masses to do whatever they could to
help safeguard the Indian tiger. As a result of the campaign, several
prominent political leaders came on air and pledged to protect the forests of
their respective states. During the telethon 19.9 million rupees were raised
through donations. The funds collected were donated to "Rapid Response Units"
to equip and train forest departments to respond during emergency situations like
man-animal conflict, anti-poaching patrolling, fire-fighting among others.
Support My School Campaign: On 24 January 2011 NDTV in partnership with
Coca-Cola India, CAF and UN-Habitat launched the "Support My School"
campaign. The motive of this telethon was to create awareness on water and
sanitation, environment and healthy active living. Indian cricketer Sachin
Tendulkar was the brand ambassador of this campaign. On 18 September 2011 an
event was organised to support education in rural India. It was supported by
Sachin Tendulkar and Bollywood Actor Sanjay Dutt. The event generated more
than 72 million Rupees to fund the needs of more than 140 schools.
Fit India Movement: On 16 March 2011 NDTV and Nirmal Lifestyle launched a
long-term campaign: Fit India Movement. The purpose of this movement is to
change the way Indians think about their fitness and make India a healthy nation.
The "Mission-1" of this movement was "Marks for Sports".
Marks for Sports: This initiative was launched on 16 March 2011 under the "Fit
India Movement" of NDTV and Nirmal Lifestyle. The goal of is to push for
inclusion of sports in the school curriculum, hoping that this will make
parents encourage their children to take up sports. Actor Ranbir Kapoor, Dr.
Prannoy Roy, chairman, NDTV and Dharmesh Jain, chairman and managing director of
Nirmal Lifestyle launched this initiative in New Delhi.
Save India's Coasts: This campaign was an initiative of NDTV and Toyota Etios.
NDTV's crew travelled the entire coast of India, starting in western Gujarat
and ending in West Bengal in six weeks, reporting on the issues facing the coast
along the way. Green Champion: This campaign was an
initiative of NDTV with Godrej. It is India's first environment based reality
show, consisting of 13 episodes and 15 contestants who travel across the
country to perform green tasks such as installation of solar panel in a rural
home, developing a rainwater harvesting system at a rural school, installing a
drip irrigation system in a farm. The show is telecasted on 4 channels of
NDTV. Cases and Controversies
= Allegation of corruption and criminal conspiracy =
On 20 January 1998 Central Bureau of Investigation filed cases against New
Delhi Television managing director Prannoy Roy, former director general of
Doordarshan R. Basu and five other top officials of Doordarshan under Section
120-B of the Indian Penal Code for criminal conspiracy and under the
Prevention of Corruption Act. According to the CBI charge-sheet, Doordarshan
suffered a loss of over Rs 35.2 million due to the "undue favours" shown to NDTV
as its programme The World This Week was put in 'A' category instead of 'special
A' category. = Radia tapes controversy =
In November 2010, OPEN magazine carried a story which reported transcripts of
some of the telephone conversations of Nira Radia with senior journalists,
politicians, and corporate houses, many of whom have denied the allegations. The
Central Bureau of Investigation has announced that they have 5,851
recordings of phone conversations by Radia, some of which outline Radia's
attempts to broker deals in relation to the 2G spectrum sale. The tapes appear
to demonstrate how Radia attempted to use some media persons including NDTV's
Barkha Dutt to influence the decision to appoint A. Raja as telecom minister. She
always denied her role in this episode with stating her role as simply error of
judgment. Barkha Dutt is being investigated by the CBI.
= Allegation of tax fraud = NDTV, through its foreign subsidiaries,
is alleged to have violated Indian tax and corporate laws. NDTV has denied
these allegations. The Sunday Guardian ran a story which
exposed the NDTV's financial misdemeanours and malpractices in
connivance with ICICI Bank. "NDTV-ICICI loan chicanery saved Roys" provides
details of how NDTV's major stake holders raised funds by misdeclaration
of the value of shares in NDTV. NDTV has denied the allegations and the NDTV CEO
replied to the Sunday Guardian along with the threat of "criminal
defamation". On 19 November 2015 the ED served ₹2030
crore notice to NDTV for alleged violations under the FEMA act, however
the company said it has been advised that the allegations are not "legally
tenable". = Commonwealth Games Contract =
On 5 August 2011 Comptroller and Auditor General of India's report on XIX
Commonwealth Games was tabled in Parliament of India. In section 14.4.2
of the report, CAG alleged that while awarding contracts worth Rs 37.8 million
for production & broadcasting of commercials for promoting CWG-2010 to
NDTV & CNN-IBN, the Commonwealth Games Organizing Committee followed an
arbitrary approach. Proposals were considered in an ad hoc manner, as and
when a proposal was received; no form of competitive tendering was adopted. The
CAG further said in its report that, "We had no assurance about the
competitiveness of the rates quoted by these channels and the need and
usefulness of these proposals. From March 2010 to June 2010, the entire pre
games publicity and sponsorship publicity was done only on NDTV &
CNN-IBN." = Suit against TAM India =
News broadcaster company sued television audience measurement company, TAM India
and its global parent firms for over a billion dollars in the Supreme Court of
New York, alleging TAM of manipulating ratings in return for bribes to its
officials. References
External links Official website
NDTV on Twitter NDTV on Facebook
ndtv's channel on YouTube NDTV Worldwide
NDTV Breaking News NDTV Social feeds