NTERNATIONAL media groups, stung by stagnating sales and declining profits, see India as a fast-growing market ripe with opportunity.
Efforts to liberalise overseas investment rules have attracted a raft of foreign players including Pearson, publisher of the Financial Times, Independent News and Media, Turner International and, most recently, BBC Worldwide. The unit, the commercial arm of the BBC, became the first major overseas investor to take a stake in India’s commercial radio market when it set up a joint venture with Mid-Day Multimedia.
The deregulation has also attracted Malaysian pay-TV firm Astro All Asia, which joined two Indian companies to participate in the latest auction of FM radio licences. The removal of barriers in the radio business follows the Government’s decision to encourage overseas companies to invest in the domestic newspaper and television businesses. There is a 26 per cent cap on foreign ownership of newspapers and TV news channels.
The Financial Times picked up a stake in the Indian business newspaper Business Standard. Independent News and Media bought 26 per cent of Indian newspaper group Jagran Prakashan for about $33 million (£18.6 million) last year.
In television, Turner International invested in Global Broadcast News for a 24-hour English news channel that went on air in November and Reuters agreed a deal with Times Television for a news and current affairs channel.
