Raghav Bahl - Rupert Mudroch of India

With the alliance announced between TV18 and Viacom (owner of channels like MTV, VH1, Nickledeon), and plans of launching a Hindi entertainment channel, the Network18 group has shown its intent of how it plans to rule the Indian television and online space. The company has always tried to adopt a successful business model as all of its ventures are in collaboration with leading players in the resepctive field.

Post-restructuring, there are 3 listed entities - Network18, TV18 and GBN.Network18 is the holding company for other unlisted entities such as Studio18 (Film Production), Shop18 (Home Shopping), Setrpo (Cable Distribution) and Web18 (which has some of the popular Internet Verticals - moneycontrol.com, poweryourtrade.com, commodtiescontrol.com, ibnlive.com, tech2.com, compareindia.com, cricketnext.com, yatra.com, jobstreet.com, bigtreeticketing.com, indiaearnings.com, easymf.com - each of the mentioned site catering to respective niche audience).

TV18 has 2 business channels in partnership with CNBC, CNBC-TV18 and Awaaz, while GBN (Global Broadcasting News) has an English news channel CNN-IBN, in collaboration with CNN, and a Hindi news channel in collaboration with Channel 7(promoted by Dainik Jagran - India’s Largest newspaper group). The group also has Newswire18 (acquired from CRISIL), announced to venture into e-broking in partnership with Centurion Bank of Punjab and started Web18 Engage, an online real estate venture.

The above ventures has been undertaken in a short span of time, and the exciting observation is the ability of the company to scale up the business model and monetize each of its business properties through multiple revenue streams like advertising, subscription, Content syndication & Value added services. It has successfully leveraged upon its dominance in the business news space to various other properties, and has been among the fastest in adding new growth drivers.

The presence of the company across various new age media services would enable it to increase its revenues, creating a safe net for the company. However, rapid expansion will require fund raising affecting the capital structure of the company. Also, the company has still not ventured into highly potential and competitive area of print and radio, which has faced hectic action off late attracting new players and fresh investment. Even then, the company has been forthcoming in its ventures as compared to its peers like TV Today, HT Media, Sun TV, Zee TV and thus may command a premium in its valuation among the media sector.