India, already one of the top markets for NewsCorp, will be a key profit driver for the company in the years to come, James Murdoch, the chief executive and chairman of Europe and Asia operations, has said.
In an hour-long interview with Business Standard, Murdoch, who is in India to attend the Ficci-Frames summit in Mumbai and watch the India-Australia match, said: “While we do not disclose the numbers publicly, in terms of profit growth, our India business is on a similar scale as single-sector businesses in West Europe, like say the newspaper business in the UK or the marketing business in the US. It is one of the dozen-odd chunks that offer substantial profit growth.”
Murdoch said NewsCorp’s large investments and India’s high growth rates would ensure the country’s dominance in the company’s global plans.
Murdoch said as part of the restructuring (after which India operations started reporting directly to London rather than through Hong Kong), the company was able to remove a huge layer of structure and ventilate its efforts directly on India. As a result, India was one of NewsCorp’s primary markets alongside the US, Latin America, the UK and western Europe, especially Germany and Italy, he said.
Murdoch did not give details about reports that the group was looking to renew its partnership with the NDTV group in the news business. NDTV is reportedly planning to outsource advertising and sales for its three news channels and the web to Star. “Everyone is talking about it. Even after the split, I have always kept in touch with Prannoy and Radhika. I count them as friends. Prannoy has done a tremendous job with his news product. The TV news sector exploded after we split with NDTV, though we are not sure how many channels can be supported,” he said.
But he added: “We have a good partnership with the Ananda Bazaar Patrika group where we are a minority partner. We always try to keep in touch with everyone and see what happens. At the moment, our focus is on entertainment and supporting our JV in the news businesses. But if you ask if we have a business relationship with others in the news sector in general, the answer is, of course we do”.
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On whether the talks with NDTV were triggered by the fact that the group needed money, Murdoch said, “Television news is an expensive business. For example, with Libya, the Japanese quake happening, it’s a tough business to do on a global scale. I do not have any idea about Prannoy’s finances.”
To a question if ties with governments were as important for him as they were for his father Rupert Murdoch, he said, “Our so-called closeness to governments is overstated. Take the example of the UK –for many years we were not allowed to invest in newspapers, we could not buy Manchester United, we could not start new pay TV channels.” He said his relationship with governments was very straightforward. “In most places, we are in the news business and so we report on politics, hold people to account. Often we are unpopular, but sometimes also popular, with governments. But we prefer a reasonable distance, as that is what we owe to our customers,” he said.