ITV Group has announced that it has, with its ‘associates’, acquired control of INX News Pvt. Ltd., which owns and operates the English news channel NewsX. This expands the portfolio of ITV, which runs Hindi news channel India News, besides six regional news channels in the north and central regions of India.
In a statement, Kartikeya Sharma, managing director, ITV, said, “This is a logical market expansion for us and enables us to enter the English news domain while strengthening our presence in the broadcast and digital media space. NewsX has emerged as a quality news provider with great growth potential and making it part of our group’s network of seven regional news channels will bolster news gathering abilities and create multiple synergies all around.”
In 2009, Vinay Chhajlani and Jehangir S Pocha took over NewsX, which was founded as part of INX Media promoted by former STAR ceo Peter Mukerjea.
Chhajlani and Pocha said being part of the ITV Group will help NewsX
‘transcend the limitations of being a stand-alone channel’, and ‘give
thrust to the channel’s editorial and commercial development’.