K.D. Singh, the controversial promoter behind Tehelka magazine and its shelved Financial World newspaper project, is once again in the news—for the wrong reasons. Already under a shadow after allegedly buying his way into Parliament last June, and after being stopped at Delhi airport with Rs 57 lakh cash last month, India Today magazine reports…
Tag Archives: Times Private Treaties
‘ET Wealth’ skirts ethical rekha from issue one
After bundling The Speaking Tree with The Times of India, the country’s biggest newspaper group has unveiled a new product that comes bundled with The Economic Times: ET Wealth. The 48-page personal finance newspaper, in a Berliner format a la Bombay Mirror, is issued with ET on Mondays. It will be supplied free in the…
‘Vijaya Next’ editor Deepak Thimaya resigns?
PRITAM SENGUPTA in New Delhi and PALINI R. SWAMY in Bangalore write: Vijaya Next, the weekly Kannada newspaper launched by The Times of India group for the “upwardly mobile Kannadiga population”, is said to be looking for a new editor, just three weeks after the paper hit the stands. Sources at Times House on Bahadur…
PRABHASH JOSHI, A HINDI TITAN, IS NO MORE
sans serif records with deep regret the passing away of the veteran Hindi editor and a fearless voice against media malfeasance, Prabhash Joshi, in New Delhi on Friday morning. He was 72 years old. Founder editor of the Hindi daily Jansatta published by the Indian Express group, Joshi was a key member of the inner…
Guess who monetised editorial space first?
“Paid News”—editorial space being sold for a fee, without revealing to news consumers that it is an advertisement—is suddenly all the rage, with the Magsaysay Award-winning journalist P. Sainath weighing in on the issue. In just the last week, the Foundation for Media Professionals (FMP) has conducted a seminar on the topic*; the communist party…
Does he who pays the piper call the tune?
The media is pilloried, and rightly so, for erasing the line between editorial and advertising. Space sellers are slammed, and rightly so, for allowing advertisers and agencies to run riot. And publishers and editors are pilloried, and rightly so, for not standing up and telling advertisers, agencies and space sellers where to get off. But…
Old wine in very old bottle is still old wine
SHARANYA KANVILKAR writes from Bombay: The Times of India has unveiled its ‘Crest Edition‘ in Bombay and Delhi with a 40-page offering at an “introductory price” of Rs 6 per copy. (The ‘Crest Edition‘ branding is embedded below the masthead in italics.) “Why another newspaper or magazine, you may well ask. Don’t we already have…
A package deal that’s well worth a second look
The Times of India may have made many sterling contributions to Indian journalism in the first 150 years of its existence, but its chief claim to fame in the last 21 years has been to blur the distinction between editorial and advertisement to the extent of rendering the former irrelevant to journalism. The Times is,…
Times Private Treaties: the full list of ‘partners’
The following is the full and unexpurgated portfolio of Times Private Treaties, the equity-for-ads investment arm of The Times of India group as on 11 May 2009. The list of clients as per industry has had disappeared from the Times Private Treaties website following the recent media scrutiny, and the Google cache has had also…
Times Private Treaties gets a very public airing
Miracles never cease, and Times Private Treaties (TPT), the investment arm of Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd (BCCL), publishers of The Times of India group of publications, is suddenly the object of attention with two competing newspapers having chosen Monday, 11 May 2009,to turn their attention on it. The first story by Shuchi Bansal and…
The Scoreline: different strokes for different folks
The second season of Indian Premier League (IPL), the shotgun wedding of cricket, cinema, celebrity, cheesecake, and commerce, is now into its second week in South Africa, but its influence is alrady being felt not just on the way cricket is played but on the way cricket is covered on the sports pages. The table,…
Pyramid Saimira, Tatva & Times Private Treaties
SHARANYA KANVILKAR writes from Bombay: A nice little question mark hangs over Times Private Treaties, the controversial investment arm of The Times of India group, after India’s stock market regular yesterday barred 230 persons/entities from dealing in the securities market following their “prima facie” involvement in a forgery scam involving Pyramid Saimira Theatre Limited, an…
It’s April 1, and the joke is on us (and them)
On exchange4media, group editor Pradyuman Maheshwari lists the 10 April Fool’s Day headlines he wishes would turn out to be true: #09: Newspapers up cover price. Times/HT/Hindu/DNA now priced at Rs 10; ET/BS/Mint at Rs 15: The Indian Newspaper Society steps in to convince the leading newspapers of the country—including regional biggies like The Telegraph,…
Sucheta Dalal in public row on private treaties
The true depth of an employer-employee relationship is never quite revealed during the course of the latter’s employment, generally speaking. It is only after the two have parted ways, when the two parties take their gloves off and shadow-box each other, does it become clear whether it was good cohabitation or a charade. India’s bestknown…
Why JoJo might want to leave The Times of India
SHARANYA KANVILKAR writes from Bombay: Well-placed sources in command central of The Times of India group confirm that the paper’s executive editor, Jaideep Bose aka JoJo, has indeed put in his papers as has been rumoured for the last couple of days, but not even editors who have his ear are in a position to…
‘The first casualty of a cosy deal is credibility’
The Times of India group’s decision to make strategic investments in mid-level companies, in return for guaranteed advertising and editorial exposure in the group’s publications and media vehicles, through the quaintly named “Private Treaties“, has had several other media houses following suit. Hindustan Times is said to be well on its way to establishing a…
Forget the news, you can’t believe the ads either
The selling of the news columns in Indian newspapers, a pernicious practice that deliberately blurs the distinction between independently generated news and paid advertisements, has assumed pandemic proportions with language publications unabashedly apeing the market-leader The Times of India, which pioneered the move. But, it now turns out that even paid advertisements are no longer…
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