India’s top news network founders sell stake to billionaire Adani: ‘All suggestions we made were accepted’

Billionaire Adani will now control nearly 65 per cent of NDTV

NDTV founder Prannoy Roy (NDTV/Screengrab)

The founders of New Delhi Television Ltd (NDTV) have sold most of their shares to Gautam Adani, four months after the Indian billionaire took over the news network, leading to speculations about the future of one of the country’s last bastions of free media.

In a statement released on Friday, Prannoy and Radhika Roy said: “The AMG Media Network, after the recent open offer, is now the single-largest shareholder in NDTV. Consequently, with mutual agreement we have decided to divest most of our shares in NDTV to the AMG Media network.” The AMG Media Network is an Adani-owned entity.

The husband-and-wife team, who started NDTV in 1988 “in the belief that journalism in India was world-class but needed a strong and effective broadcast platform that would allow it to grow and shine”, also tendered their resignation.

“After 34 years, we believe that NDTV is an institution that has met so many of our hopes and ideals; we are so proud and grateful that across the globe, NDTV is recognized as ‘India’s and Asia’s Most-Trusted News Broadcaster.’ Since the open offer was launched, our discussions with Mr Gautam Adani have been constructive; all the suggestions we made were accepted by him positively and with openness,” they said.

Mr Adani, Reuters reported, will now control 64.71 per cent of the company. He already held 37 per cent after the open offer and acquisition, despite several unsuccessful attempts by NDTV to block the takeover citing regulatory restrictions on moving shares.

Ravish Kumar, a senior executive editor of NDTV, resigned soon after Mr Adani acquired the entity backed by NDTV’s founders.

NDTV is said to be part of a shrinking news space critical of the current dispensation at New Delhi. In August, Mr Adani’s media arm AMG Media Networks acquired a holding company that owns 29.18 per cent of NDTV, something the veteran journalists said was done “without consent”.

The move allowed Mr Adani to buy another 26 per cent of the news conglomerate through an open offer triggered by regulations of the country’s securities watchdog.

“The NDTV founders and the Company would like to make it clear that this exercise of rights” was “executed without any input from, conversation with, or consent of the NDTV founders, who, like NDTV, have been made aware of this exercise of rights only today,” said a statement released by the broadcaster on the same day.

Former NDTV employees emotionally reacted to the news. “It’s the end of NDTV as we knew it. Grateful to have spent 14 years of my life at this wonderful organisation that much more than just a work place - it was home,” wrote journalist Nikhil Naz.

“Thank you to Prannoy and Radhika Roy for building this institution, for believing in all of us, for teaching us everything we know about broadcast journalism and for being such fine human beings, wrote journalist Nidhi Razdan, who started her career at the organisation and is one of the most prominent faces of the network as a leading anchor.

“NDTV blazed a trail of independent broadcasting in India. Prannoy and Radhika Roy deserve gratitude from the entire media fraternity,” said journalist Pankaj Pachauri.

(With inputs from Reuters)