NDTV

This article is about New Delhi Television Limited. For Notre Dame Television, see Notre Dame Television.

NDTV

Type	Broadcast, television and online
Country	India
Availability	Nationwide
Founded	by Prannoy Roy in 1988
Headquarters	New Delhi, Delhi, India
Owner	Prannoy Roy Radhika Roy
Key people	Prannoy Roy Radhika Roy Vikram A Chandra Barkha Dutt
Launch date	1988
Former names	New Delhi Television
Picture format	480i (16:9 SDTV) 720p (HDTV)
Official website	www.ndtv.com

NDTV (BSE: 532529‎, NSE: NDTV) is an Indian commercial broadcasting television network founded in 1988. It was founded by Prannoy Roy, an eminent journalist and current chairman and director of NDTV Group. NDTV currently has more than 1,000 employees producing news from over twenty locations in India.^{[citation needed]} NDTV is an acronym for the original name of the company, New Delhi Television.

On July 30, 2011, Vikram A Chandra was elevated to the position of group CEO replacing KVL Narayan Rao who is now Executive Vice Chairman of the company.

New Delhi Television is among India's top broadcasters and has twenty-three offices and studios across the country. Its three national news channels NDTV 24x7, NDTV India (Hindi) and NDTV Profit (Business news) 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; JV between NDTV Group and United Breweries Group
• NDTV Hindu- English Chennai Based News Channel, with The Hindu Group

International

• ATN NDTV 24x7
• NDTV Worldwide

Notable personalities

• Vikram A Chandra, Group CEO
• Barkha Dutt
• Pankaj Pachauri (former senior editor of NDTV India, left NDTV to join PMO as Media Advisor)
• Nidhi Kulpati
• Nidhi Razdan
• Sachin Khanna
• Vinod Dua
• Vishnu Som
• Ambika Anand
• Siddharth Vinayak Patankar
• Kamal Khan

Philanthropy & Social Initiatives

NDTV keeps on organising various campaigns through their channels to support Education, Rural Electrification, Awareness on Climate Change. Some of their campaigns are as follows:

• Greenathon - It's an event to generate money to spread awareness on climate change and Rural Electrification. It was suppoported 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 resuling in donations of more than 5 crore of Rupees. It is also sponsored by Auto major Toyota.

• Save Our Tiger Campaign - This campaign was launched on January 30, 2010 by Indian telecom company Aircel in partnership with NDTV & WWF-India. The goal of this campaign 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 [RRU]" to equip and train Forest Departments to respond during emergency situations like man-animal conflict, anti-poaching patrolling, fire-fighting among others.

• Telethon - Support My School Campaign - On January 24, 2011 NDTV in partnership with Coca-Cola India, CAF & UN-Habitat lauched "Support My School" campaign. The motive of this campaign 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 organized to support education in Rural India. It was supported by Sachin Tendulkar and Bollywood Actor Sanjay Dutt. The event generated more than 7.2 crore Rupees to fund the needs of more than 140 schools.

• Fit India Movement - On March 16, 2011 NDTV & 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 March 16, 2011 under the "Fit India Movement" of NDTV & Nirmal Lifestyle. The goal of this initiative 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 & MD of Nirmal Lifestyle launched this initiative in New Delhi

• Save India's Coasts - This campaign was an initiative of NDTV & Toyota Etios. NDTV's crew traveled the entire coast of India, starting in western Gujarat and ending in West Bengal in 6 weeks, reporting on the issues facing the coast along the way.

Controversies

Allegation of Corruption and Criminal conspiracy

On 20th January, 1998 Central Bureau of Investigation filed cases against New Delhi Television (NDTV) 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(IPC) for criminal conspiracy and under the Prevention of Corruption Act. According to the CBI charge-sheet, Doordarshan suffered a loss of over Rs 3.52 crore due to the “undue favours” shown to NDTV as its programme The World This Week (TWTW) was put in `A’ category instead of `special A’ category.

Radia tapes controversy

Main article: 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. None of any other news media groups have criticized it very strongly and this is another precise reason to deteriorate acceptance of Media in Indian society. Barkha Dutt is also being investigated by 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".

Commonwealth Games Contract

On August 5, 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 3.78 crore 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."

External links

• Official website (Mobile)
• NDTV on Twitter
• NDTV on Facebook
• ndtv's channel on YouTube
• NDTV Worldwide