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Zee News

Zee News is a Hindi news channel from Zee Media Corporation Limited, a part of the Subhash Chandra-family owned Essel Group. The origins of Zee News as a channel, could be traced back to 1998, when the channel had an outlet called Zee TV and the other infotainment channel called EL-TV. Zee TV, back then, had a prime time news show every night as a part of their programming mix. Eventually, a full scale channel was launched as Zee News in 1999.

Subhash Chandra, the owner of Zee News, is a lawmaker in the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of the India Parliament). He was elected as an Independent from the state of Haryana, with the help of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The channel is perceived to be closer to the BJP in its content. In the aftermath of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetizaton of high value currency including Rs. 1000 and Rs. 500 notes, a new currency of Rs. 2000 was introduced. During one of the very popular shows on Zee News,- DNA – Daily News and Analysis, spoke of a “revolutionary new chip” that was embedded in every 2000-rupee note, so that it can be tracked. (Watch the video here: www.youtube.com/watch. It was later debunked as fake news, by the Reserve Bank of India.

According to the data available from the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) for the first week of 2019, Zee News was at the second position behind Aaj Tak in the overall Hindi news channels. In Hindi News Rural segment, Zee News was in fourth position and in Hindi News Urban, the channel was again ranked second behind Aaj Tak.

Zee Media Corporation Ltd. introduced a new channel, a second Hindi News Channel called Zee Hindustan, which is a news channel without any anchors. Zee News also turned free-to-air from being a paid channel. Their digital platform, zeenews.com added five new language sites including Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, Tamil and Gujarati.

Key facts

Audience Share

Missing Data

Ownership Type

Private

Geographic Coverage

National

Content Type

Free to Air / Satellite

Data Publicly Available

ownership data is easily available from other sources, e. g. public registries etc.

2 ♥

Media Companies / Groups

Zee Media Corporation

Ownership

Ownership Structure

Zee News is owned by Zee Media Corporation Limited, whose biggest shareholders are 25FPS Media Private Limited (35.32%) and Arm Infra and Utilities Private Limited (33.79%), and the remaining 30.89% shares are Public holding.

100% share of 25FPS Media Private and 99% share of Arm Infra and Utilities Private Limited is held by Primat Infra Power and Multiventures Private Limited (formerly known as Prime Publishing Private Limited).

99.99% share of Primat Infra Power and Multiventures Private Limited (formerly known as Prime Publishing Private Limited) is held by Sprit Textile Private Limited.

Sushila Goenka, wife of Dr. Subhash Chandra holds 51% share of Sprit Textile Private Limited and through this company holds 35.24% share of Zee Media Corporation Limited.

48% share of Sprit Textile Private Limited is held by Asian Satellite Broadcast private limited and through this company Asian Satellite Broadcast private limited via Primat Infra Power and Multiventures Private Limited, holds 33.12% share of Zee Media Corporation Limited.

Shares of Asian Satellite Broadcast private limited are divided between 6 companies: Rama Associates Limited (17%), Essel Agro Pvt.Ltd (17%) Jay Properties Pvt.Ltd (17%), Continental Drug Company Private Limited (17%), Edison Utility works Pvt.Ltd (17%) and Essel International Ltd(15%).

Dr. Subhash Chandra owns 100% of Essel Media Ventures private limited which owns 20% share each in Rama Associates Limited, Essel Agro Private Limited, Jay Properties Private Limited, Continental Drug Company Private Limited and Edison Utility works Private Limited and through this companies via Sprit Textile Private Limited Dr. Subhash Chandra owns 5.65% share of Zee Media Corporation Limited.

Shashi Gupta owns 99.9% share of Essel International Ltd which owns 16% share each in Rama Associates Limited, Essel Agro Private Limited, Jay Properties Private Limited, Continental Drug Company Private Limited and Edison Utility works Private Limited. Shashi Gupta owns through Essel International Limited via Asian Satellite Broadcast private limited 4.96% share of Zee Media Corporation Limited and through the above mentioned 5 companies he owns additional 4.5% share, which in combine stands at 9.46% share of Zee Media Corporation Limited.

Moreover, all the above mentioned 6 companies have heavy cross shareholding and it is difficult to calculate the accurate shares of Dr. Subhash Chandra and Shashi Gupta.

However, on the basis of the above, it was clearly observed that Mrs. Sushila Goenka, wife of Dr. Subhash Chandra owns 35.24% share of Zee Media Corporation Limited and Dr. Subhash Chandra 5.65% (traceable) which together stands at 40.89%, Shashi Gupta owns 9.46% shares, public holds 30.89% shares and the remaining 18.76% shares are more than likely held by Dr. Subhash Chandra and Shashi Gupta. Though the same could not be verified due to complex cross shareholding amongst the companies.

Voting Rights

Missing Data

Individual Owner

Group / Individual Owner

Public

30.89% shares of the company is owned by the public.

30.9%
Media Companies / Groups
Facts

General Information

Founding Year

1999

Affiliated Interests Founder

Dr. Subhash Chandra

is credited with starting India’s first ever satellite television entertainment channel, Zee TV in 1992. Later, he also started India’s privately-owned news channel, Zee News. Dr. Chandra has been an Independent Member of the Rajya Sabha, (Upper House of the Indian Parliament), since 2016, a seat he won with the help of Bharatiya Janata Party lawmakers in the state of Haryana. BJP is currently the ruling party in the country.

Dr. Subhash Chandra is part of the Goenka business family. His brothers Laxmi Narain Goel, Jawahar Goel and Ashok Goel head different businesses of the Essel Group. Jawahar Goel is the Chairman and Managing Director of Dish TV India, Ltd. Dish TV is the Direct-to-Home (DTH) Entertainment Company, and is in the distribution space. Dr. Chandra is the non-Executive Director of Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited, that owns the entertainment arm, Zee TV. His son, Punit Goenka is the Managing Director and the CEO of the company. Dr. Chandra’s second son, Amit Goenka is the CEO of the company’s international broadcast business.

Affiliated Interests Ceo

Ashok Venkatramani

Managing Director, Zee Media Corporation Limited, has a Bachelor of Technology from the Bombay (now Mumbai) University. He has done his Management from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad and Harvard Business School. He began his career in the FMCG – Fast Moving Consumer Goods – sector with Unilever and spent 19 years in the company. He is the former CEO of ABP News Network, the company that runs the news channel ABP News in Hindi, a position he held till 2016.

He is also the former President and former Director on the Board of News Broadcasters Association. He is currently a part of Management Committee of the International Association of Advertisers (IAA- India Chapter). He has also served as the member of the Digitization Task Force appointed by the Government of India.
He is the Director in Overseas Property Consultants Private Limited, IRIS Business Services Private Limited, and Intelligent Insights Private Limited.

Affiliated Interests Editor-In-Chief

Sudhir Chaudhary

is the Editor-in-Chief of Zee News, Zee Business and WION (World is One News). He has been with the Zee Network since 2012. In the past he has been with Sahara Samay, a Hindi news channel that he launched, and then on to India TV, for a brief period. In 2008, he joined a little-known Hindi news channel called Live India.
Sudhir Chaudhary rejoined Zee Network in 2012. He hosts the 9 pm show on Zee News called “DNA: Daily News and Analysis”, that has a sizeable viewership. Sudhir Chaudhary was awarded the prestigious Ramnath Goenka Award for Hindi Journalism in 2013.

Contact

Essel Studio

FC-19, Sector 16-A,

Tel.: +91-0120- 2511064 – 76

Email : inews@zeemedia.esselgroup.com,

Website: zeenews.india.com

Financial Information

Revenue (in Mill. $)

Missing Data

Operating Profit (in Mill. $)

Missing Data

Advertising (in % of total funding)

Missing Data

Market Share

Missing Data

Further Information

Meta Data

Most data about Zee Media Corporation Ltd. was available online through the company’s Annual Report and through the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. Establishing the final beneficiary, that is the, ownership of the company was slightly tricky because there were many companies through which the final owner held stake in Zee Media Corporation Limited. Also, the other businesses, and allied Media businesses mentioned in the study here belong not directly to Zee Media Corporation Limited, but to Essel Group of Companies, the mother entity, although not a legal entity. The Subhash Chandra family, through himself, his wife, his brothers, and sons control the businesses of the Essel Group. The company was written to, seeking confirmation of all the details pertaining to the channel and the Company, via email on the 15th January 2019, and a courier on the 1st February 2019. There has been no response from the company.

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