August 6, 2008
Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch plans to tap vast Indian market
In a recent announcement, Australian media baron Rupert Murdoch unveiled plans to launch as many as six new regional television channels in India. The broad scale of expansion undertaken by Murdoch is to tap the vast market for electronic media in the rapidly developing country which is also the third-largest country in Asia. The recent media boom in India has seen newspapers, television channels and magazines making their debut at an unprecedented rate.
Murdoch told reporters that he plans to invest around $100 million in the launch of the new television channels which will take place over a period of one year. He however declined reports that he has any immediate plans of investing in the country’s print media. For quite some time now, Indian legislators have been debating over the pros and cons of allowing foreign investment in the nation’s print media which is at present restricted to 26 percent.
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp already has a sizeable presence in India’s electronic media through its wholly-owned subsidiary, the Star network. Star operates around fourteen television channels in India which cover news, entertainment and sports. On his visit to India, Murdoch met the Prime Minister in national capital New Delhi and later spoke to business as well as media tycoons in the financial capital of the country, Mumbai.
-Kalyani Mookherji
