New Delhi Television (NDTV) is an independent news organization in India. In 1998, they started the first 24/7 news channel. The media house was founded by economist Prannoy Roy and his wife journalist Radhika Roy in 1984.
In 1999, NDTV launched its own website NDTV.com where they streamed live their productions and attracted 55,000 views daily in their first month of launch.
The media company succeeded in the business because they introduced the story in a conversational style and added a pre-packaged story to make it more appealing.
The company also started Vijay Tv which was broadcasting in Tamil language. The channel was owned by Star Network of Rupert Murdoch.
NDTV was hired by Star News to produce content and were being paid $20 million per year for those services. NDTV used its own branded equipment such as microphones with NDTV imprints without any dispute. The company had better equipment, appealing graphics and they hired the best talent.
The staff at NDTV earned good salaries and were provided meals as well as transport from and to work. Those who worked for the media house say that it was common to have muffins and croissants served for breakfast.
Senior employees were given Sedans for their own travel. By 2004, NDTV had set up 20 bureaus across India to facilitate news gathering. The company also purchased an helicopter which they painted red and white and added the company logo but they had no permit to fly over New Delhi. Reporters used to be flown to their assignments.
In 2003, NDTV became an independent news channel. The company launched two channels: NDTV India and NDTV 24×7.
When they were covering elections in India, they introduced a new way of working which included having 97 hotlines to the studio from all state capitals and making use of 15 vans for outdoor broadcasting and deploying reporters across India.
By 2005, NDTV had 19 offices and studios across India. The company established several websites such as Carsandbike.com, Gadgets360, SmartCooky, BandBaajaaa for weddings and ecommerce website indianroots. Gadgets360 which was an electronics portal entered into the ecommerce industry.
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