Media baron donates most to parties after Birlas

The Economic Times has run a list of companies who made legal donations to political parties in 2009-10 based on a  list compiled by the association for democratic reforms (ADR).

At no.2—ahead of even the Tatas and ITC—with a total donation of Rs 12.5 crore (Rs 10 crore for the BJP and Rs 2.5 crore for the Congress) is Asianet TV holdings, of the mobile phone operator turned media baron Rajeev Chandrasekhar.

Chandrasekhar, an independent member of the Rajya Sabha elected with BJP support, owns the Asianet News channel in Kerala and the Suvarna News channel in Karnataka, and recently bought the Kannada Prabha newspaper from the New Indian Express group.

Chandrasekhar who also owned several general entertainment channels in Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu entered into a joint venture with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

A Reuters backgrounder contains this operative paragraph:

“Asianet Communications Limited, which is a joint venture with Asianet TV Holdings Private Limited, was formed to provide television services for South Indian audiences. The joint venture consists of the Company’s (News Corp’s) approximate 81% interest in the Tamil language channel Vijay and the Company’s (News Corp’s) approximate 75% interest in the Malayalam language channels Asianet and Asianet Plus, the Kannada language channel Suvarna and the Telugu language channel Sitara.”

An ADR analysis (page 8 of 28) pegs Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s total assets at Rs 37 crore—Rs 12 crore in movable assets and Rs 25 crore in immovable assets.

Also read: Rajeev Chandrasekhar buying a Malayalam daily?

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Rupert Murdoch on India, China and democracy

The controversial media mogul, Rupert Murdoch, on India and China, in Esquire:

“Any company that is global cannot ignore China or India. They are just enormous, emerging great powers. I enjoy China. I have a lot of friends there. But all we have there are the moment is a few very minor investments.

“India is different. India is a democracy—imperfect, but a democracy. And there is a rule of law there where you know exactly where you stand. It’s a difficlt country. There are so many languages. We’re just beginning to spread beyond Hindi into other languages so our channels will become more national.”

Read the full article: Rupert Murdoch has potential

Rupert Murdoch eyeing print space in India?

There have been persistent rumours of it for a while now. Now Business Standard reports that Rupert Murdoch‘s Star group is indeed planning a foray in the print media in India.

Top executives of Star are believed to have visited Bangalore and held talks with liquor baron Vijay Mallya for a possible joint venture. Mallya owned the Tamil satellite channel Vijay TV before he sold it to Star. He also held the Bangalore franchise of Asian Age before letting go of it.

The possibility of Murdoch tying up with Aveek Sarkar‘s Ananda Bazaar Patrika group of Calcutta is also in the air. When rules of foreign direct investment in Indian television changed, ABP picked up Star’s stake. The two groups have also collaborated to launched the Bengali channel, Star Ananda.

Murdoch and Sarkar featured in Nicholas Coleridge‘s biography of the world’s great publishers, Paper Tigers, along with two other Indians, Samir Jain and Ramnath Goenka.

Photograph: courtesy New York magazine

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All this, and Star Vijay and Star Bangla

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