WSJ agreement purely for content sharing: HT Media

Excerpts from Markets Midday on CNBC-TV18 Watch the full show » RELATED NEWS HT Media shoots up smartly HT Media Q1 net up 197.6% at Rs 30.9cr ALSO READ See latest News about HT Media See previous management interviews See what other Experts & Brokerages are saying about HT Media HT Media BSE | NSE 10/02/12 Are Mutual Funds betting on HT Media?

HT Media has entered into a content partnership with the Wall Street Journal through which it will publish WSJ branded news in its new business paper.

The company's Vice Chairperson and Editorial Director Shobhna Bhartia  says that this is purely a content sharing agreement with WSJ. She adds that they are likely to launch a business paper by the year-end.

The new business paper will have a Delhi, Mumbai edition initially.

Excerpts from CNBC-TV18's exclusive interview with Shobhna Bhartia:

Q: Just to clear the speculation, the new paper will not carry the Wall Street Journal masthead, will it, or is it just going to be branded pages, or will we see the masthead on your new paper?

A: This is a decision, which still hasn't been arrived at. But under the agreement, that option would remain with us. We will explore the option and take a decision a little closer to the launch.

Q: Does that option also depend on government permissions coming through because we believe that WSJ was in negotiations with Bennett Coleman for a long time and there were issues on your selling such a venture's media space and sharing advertisements?

A: No, we weren't really entering into a deal for sharing of advertisements. Ours is purely a content sharing agreement. We hope to leverage our respective brands. So I don't think that the advertisement bid would really affect us.

But looking at the overall cap that the government has stipulated for sharing of content, we will be working within that and whether it is going to be in the form of branded pages, or whether it is going to be using their news and using the brand otherwise, are certain decisions, which we are yet to make.

Q: You are saying that your new newspaper could be called Wall Street Journal something?

A: It would not be called the Wall Street Journal something, but it could have the Wall Street Journal brand as well.

Q: So some pages could have the Wall Street Journal masthead as of now, is that the plan?

A: That is right.

Contd on page 2....