Bloomberg and the possible return of Raghav Bahl to TV news biz

[Thakur]

Soon after the Narendra Modi-led BJP government hiked the foreign direct investment (FDI) limit on television news media to 49 per cent, a shake-up has taken place.

Bloomberg, which used to be part of a business news channel in India under the same name with Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group as a majority owner and serial entrepreneur Ronnie Screwvala as a minority partner, has let its seven-year-old relationship expire. “We have bought out the small stake which Bloomberg LP held.

We will come out with a new branding for the channel on 1 April,” said a source in Business Broadcast News.

On the other side, Bloomberg will not exit the Indian market but will go out with a new partner.

So who will the business mate be? According to a source, the choice is going to be Raghav Bahl, the founder of TV18 who had to sell his sprawling media empire to India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani due to a biting debt.

“It is going to be BloombergQuint. First to roll out will be the content on the digital platform.

Television broadcast will follow,” the source added. When contacted, Bahl declined to comment. Bloomberg said it would announce a new media partner ‘in due course’.

Bahl has been looking to re-enter the TV news business, a space which he never wanted to willingly vacate.

Now he technically can as the non-compete period, applicable after his stake sale to Reliance Industries’ Independent Media Trust, is over.

“The non-compete period is long over,” Bahl admitted, while refusing to talk on his future plans.

In the TV space, it is the news part which Bahl can hope to redraw.

When he started out on his entrepreneurial journey, he first rolled out the business news channel after launching a production company in 1993.

Less than two years after the chapter on TV18 closed for him, business-news television is a soft spot which he can pursue again as it consumes less capital.

A general English news channel has many players and would require more financial muscle.

Fought hard between just two players at the top, the TV play in the English business news genre is no easy ground to enter.

The size of the market is small, with CNBC TV18 and ET Now taking away most of the revenues.

There are two other players—Bloomberg TV (which will now be branded anew with Bloomberg getting out) and NDTV Profit/Prime.

Bloomberg’s big strength has been the terminal business, which is used on trading floors across the world.

The challenge in India is to extend this from a B2B proposition to a consumer brand of choice. Bloomberg TV was an attempt to get there.

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