TV18 & CNN renew partnership

TV18, a subsidiary of Network18 and Turner's CNN International, on Tuesday announced the extension of their collaboration on English news channel CNN IBN. The joint venture also revealed plans to refresh CNN IBN and "provide a credible, non-partisan service". The renewal comes when TV18 has different set of owners, namely, Reliance Industries. In 2005, CNN and IBN had tied up with Network18 when erstwhile owner Raghav Bahl was in charge.

Billionaire-industrialist Mukesh Ambani had acquired Network18 alongwith its subsidiary TV18 Broadcast last year for Rs 4,000 crore, making it the largest transaction in the media sector.

Sources in the know say that the Ambani-led media group was initially not keen to renew its partnership with CNN, the American news channel, owned by Time-Warner company Turner Broadcasting System. This came following differences over editorial control and partnership.

However, those issues now appear to have been ironed out with Rahul Joshi, Network18's chief executive officer, news, and group editor-in-chief leading the editorial mandate of the channel. CNN will step in when coverage is needed for international stories, it is learnt.

In the English general news channel space in India, CNN-IBN is the only joint-venture of its kind, though in the business news space there are international brands such as Bloomberg, which earlier had a tie-up with UTV, and CNBC-TV18.