Pan India Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) Spectrum winner Infotel Broadband Services Ltd. (Infotel), a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd. today said that a part of the interest owned by it in the ETV Channels is being divested to TV18 Broadcast Limited (TV18) to offer Live TV and Multimedia contents over its up-coming 4G Wireless Broadband service.
Infotel expects to take a leadership position in content distribution through 4G Wireless broadband technology through a host of devices. Digital content of ETV from entertainment, news, sports, music, weather, education and other genres will be a key driver to increase consumption of broadband.
The combination of leading TV (Network 18 and ETV) content provider, with a bouquet of nearly 25 channels, and Infotel, will be a significant step in bringing a high quality “Live TV” experience to broadband customers across the country. Likewise, Network 18’s market-leading web portals and e-commerce operations will provide several value added services to Infotel’s broadband subscribers.
All the multimedia content of all the media and web properties of Network 18 and its associates and programming and digital content of all the broadcasting channels of TV18 and its associates on a first right basis as a most preferred customer.
RIL, through investments of about Rs.2600 crores, by its group companies, currently holds interest in various ETV Channels being operated and managed by Eenadu Group viz.
- (i) 100% economic interest in regional news channels, namely ETV Uttar Pradesh, ETV Madhya Pradesh, ETV Rajasthan, ETV Bihar and ETV Urdu channel (News Channels).
- (ii) 100% economic interest in ETV Marathi, ETV Kannada, ETV Bangla, ETV Gujarati and ETV Oriya (Entertainment Channels).
- (iii) 49% economic interest in ETV Telugu and ETV Telugu News (Telugu Channels).
