Mkt share of 75-80% in biz news category: TV18

Excerpts from Midcap Radar on CNBC-TV18 Watch the full show » RELATED NEWS TV18 makes smart gains TV18 puts on good show TV18 Group's Internet Arm raises $10 mn from Tracer Capital ALSO READ See latest News about TV 18 See previous management interviews See what other Experts & Brokerages are saying about TV 18 TV 18 BSE | NSE 01/01/70 Are Mutual Funds betting on TV 18?

Q: By when does the scheme of amalgamation go through? When are you setting a record date?

A: Our record date is set for November 24. What is going to happen there is that currently if one holds a TV18 share, then post the record date, the shareholder will get the benefits of owning the share in the current TV18, which is CNBC TV18, CNBC Awaaz and Web18.

In addition, he will get Network18 shares, which will be the company that will be formed as a result of the de-merger. There, he will get a play into GBN, which is a company that owns CNN and IBN and is a JV partner of IBN-7 with Jagran. Plus, he will get a stake in Shop 18, which is a home shopping network and a stake in Studio 18, which is a film production company.

So essentially, if somebody buys the TV18 stock today, then post record date, he will get stakes in both TV18 and in Network 18, clearly getting a play in the entire media company group as a whole.

Q: The family is expanding for the shareholders. We would like to know about the CNN-IBN performance as well.

A: GBN is on its way to listing, but whatever information I can divulge is publicly known through the ratings that we get on Television Audience Measurement, TAM. 

The channel has become Number One since the last few weeks and has been leading ahead of its competitors. And with CNBC-TV18 and CNN-IBN together, we are the leaders by far in the English language news space.

Also in the business news space, with CNBC TV 18 and Awaaz, if you combine them, our marketshare is close to about 75-80% of the business news category.

So on all fronts, our television products are really leading the market. They have dominant marketshare in each of these spaces. IBN-7 is now our key focus and a clear challenge for the company to now go out and scale up that product. It is a slightly tougher battle since the Hindi space is much more crowded, but we believe with the leadership of CNN-IBN, we will be able to back it up with IBN-7's performance very soon.

Web-18 is of course running extremely well. Last quarter, we have launched tech2.com and re-launched cricketnext.com, re-launched compareindia.com and have also launched Indiaearnings.com. On the web front, all the properties are rolling out. We expect Shop 18 to launch in the next few days and that will kick in as well.

Q: What are the plans for studio 18?

A: We will get more details on Studio 18 as we go along, but they have signed up several movies and those details will get divulged as time goes by.

(Note: e-Eighteen.com, which owns moneycontrol.com is a subsidiary of Television Eighteen).