Network 18 Media & Investments is India’s largest platform-agnostic news factory, built by stitching together the country’s widest TV and digital news networks under one roof. It was born in 1996 and later became the flagship media investment of Reliance Industries, which used two sweeping mergers-one in 2024 that folded TV18 and Moneycontrol into the listed parent, and another that combined Viacom18’s entertainment engine with Star India-to create a single entity that touches news, information, and entertainment across every screen. The recurring logic is simple: build unmatched reach in a language or genre, then monetise that audience through advertising, subscriptions, and transactions-an approach that turns a newsroom into a multi-layered business.
Business segments
Three engines at different stages-a dominant TV and digital news operation that generates the bulk of activity, a collection of niche publishing and factual-entertainment brands, and a portfolio of strategic stakes in India’s biggest entertainment and ticketing platforms-each feeding the group’s audience-first model.
1. Television News: the reach engine that makes the group India’s biggest newsroom
A network of 20 channels in more than ten languages delivers the weekly audience of 150-200 million viewers that advertisers pay to access, while leadership in business, English, and Hindi news creates pricing power.
- The widest linguistic net in Indian television - the network spans business news, general news, and 14 regional channels covering most widely spoken Indian languages, so a car brand or a government campaign can reach viewers in Gujarat, Bihar, and Karnataka through a single media group.
- No.1 where it matters most - CNBC TV18 commands roughly 80% of English business news viewership, rising above 95% during market hours, which makes it the default screen for investors and the advertisers chasing them. CNN NEWS 18 has led English general news for over 160 consecutive weeks, and News18 India has held the top spot in Hindi news for two years across all time slots and geographies.
- Regional depth that national rivals cannot easily copy - state-focused channels such as News18 Bihar/Jharkhand and News18 UP/UK are consistently #1 in their respective markets, and News18 Jammu Kashmir Ladakh Himachal is the only channel from a national network in that region, giving the group a distribution of influence that pure-play national broadcasters lack.
- Dual revenue from screens and cables - the business earns from advertising sold against its 14.2% all-India viewership share and from subscription fees paid by cable, DTH, and free-TV platforms that carry the channels, so a portion of income is recurring and not solely dependent on the advertising cycle.
2. Digital News & Information: the audience funnel that turns free readers into paying subscribers and loan customers
A network of websites, apps, and social-media accounts drawing roughly 300 million monthly users and over 7 billion monthly video views, monetised through advertising, digital subscriptions, and a fast-growing fintech marketplace.
- Moneycontrol is the profit engine inside the engine - India’s largest financial-information platform attracts more than 70 million monthly unique visitors and has converted one million of them into paying subscribers of Moneycontrol PRO, making it one of Asia’s biggest subscription-based news services. Those subscribers get research reports and live access to SEBI-registered experts, while a higher-tier Super Pro product targets active traders.
- News that reads, watches, and listens back - News18.com serves over 100 million monthly unique visitors across more than ten languages, and its Local 18 vertical covers 270-plus districts, generating hyperlocal video that national competitors do not produce at scale. Product features such as ‘Audible News’ and ‘Clip & Share’ keep users inside the ecosystem longer.
- A global brand built for export - Firstpost draws two-thirds of its viewership from outside India, with 280 million monthly video views and over 80 crore quarterly YouTube views, giving the group an audience that advertisers in the Gulf, North America, and Europe can buy.
- The newsroom is also a bank counter - Moneycontrol’s fintech layer lets users check credit scores, compare loans across multiple lenders, book fixed deposits, and apply for secured credit cards aimed at first-time credit users, so the platform earns transaction fees on top of advertising and subscription income.
- Creators as a new distribution pipe - Creator18 manages a roster of more than 1,000 social-media creators, with over 60 on exclusive contracts, extending the group’s advertising inventory into culture, commerce, and fashion content that sits just outside traditional news.
3. Publishing and Factual Entertainment: niche brands that serve concentrated, high-value audiences
A small cluster of magazine and television brands-Forbes India, Overdrive, Better Photography, and History TV18-that earn from advertising and subscriptions by owning specific reader communities rather than chasing mass reach.
- A business-community franchise in print and pixels - Forbes India has moved to a digital-first model, selling pure-digital and digital-plus-print subscriptions to an audience of entrepreneurs and investors that premium advertisers pay to reach.
- The car and camera enthusiast as a recurring customer - Overdrive covers the Indian automobile market across print, TV, and digital, while Better Photography is the country’s most widely read photography magazine, giving the group a foothold in hobbyist communities that sustain long-term subscription revenue.
- Factual entertainment with a global library - History TV18, run by AETN18, a joint venture between Network18 and A+E Networks, mixes locally produced shows with licensed global content and ranks among the top channels in its genre in urban India, earning from both advertising and distribution fees.
4. Strategic Investments: stakes in India’s entertainment backbone and ticketing monopoly
A collection of minority holdings-anchored by a 6.3% effective interest in the JioStar entertainment and sports giant and a 39% stake in BookMyShow-that give Network18 economic exposure to businesses far larger than its own operations.
- A ticket to India’s biggest screen merger - the JioStar joint venture, formed by merging Viacom18’s media and JioCinema businesses with Star India, operates over 100 TV channels, produces more than 30,000 hours of entertainment content annually, and holds a digital subscriber base exceeding 50 million across JioCinema and Hotstar, along with a portfolio of sports rights across cricket, football and other sports. Network18’s 13.54% stake in Studio 18, which in turn owns 46.82% of JioStar, gives it a 6.3% effective economic interest in that entire operation.
- The box office in your pocket - BookMyShow is India’s largest movie-ticketing platform and biggest live-events player, covering more than 6,500 screens across 650 cities in five countries, and its TVOD (transactional video-on-demand) platform streams films from Warner, Universal, Sony, and Viacom, making Network18’s stake a claim on both physical and digital entertainment spending.
- A regional news hedge - the 24.5% economic interest in Eenadu Television, a leading Telugu-language network with seven news and entertainment channels, preserves exposure to the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana markets even after voting rights were assigned to the promoter.
Group structure and partners
Network18 sits inside the Reliance Industries orbit, with RIL holding 56.89%, and the corporate structure has been aggressively simplified through mergers and stake sales to create a clean, listed news pure-play with strategic minority positions in entertainment.
- The 2024 composite scheme amalgamated TV18 Broadcast and e-Eighteen.com into Network18, extinguishing two listed and unlisted subsidiaries and consolidating all television and digital news assets into a single balance sheet, while simultaneously reducing promoter shareholding from 75% to 56.89% and increasing public float.
- Studio 18 Media (formerly Viacom18) ceased to be a subsidiary in December 2024 after RIL converted its preference shares into equity, leaving Network18 with a 13.54% stake on a fully diluted basis; RIL had earlier bought out Paramount Global’s entire 13.01% interest for ₹4,286 crore.
- Global brand licences form a durable competitive barrier: the CNN partnership was renewed for ten years as of January 2026, the CNBC licence underpins the business-news leadership, and the Forbes licence anchors the publishing division, meaning competitors cannot simply replicate these mastheads.