News18, India’s largest news network was unveiled at the first edition of Network18 Group’s marquee thought-leadership property – News18 Rising India Summit, in the presence of national and international luminaries from the fields of governance, arts, business and academia.
The occasion was graced by the Honourable Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi. Dignitaries present included Piyush Goyal, Nitin Gadkari, Farukh Abdullah, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Jai Ram Thakur, Manohar Lal Khattar, Suresh Prabhu among bureaucrats and ministers. Notable personalities such as Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate Economist, Gautam Adani, Founder, Adani Group, Naveen Jindal, Chairman Jindal Steel and Power, Rajnish Kumar, CMD, State Bank of India, Anil Agarwal, Founder and Chairman, Vedanta, Shikha Sharma, MD & CEO, Axis Bank, Kangana Ranaut, Filmstar and Prasoon Joshi were also present.
Commenting on the launch, Adil Zainulbhai, Chairman – Network18 said, “As regional markets deepen and the hunger for vernacular news continues to rise inexorably, we have carried our strengths into multiple linguistic geographies through new regional channels and digital properties. Our portfolio of national channels across news genres provides us a platform that places us at a substantial advantage versus competitors.”
Talking about News18 Network, Avinash Kaul, President – Network18 said, “The television measurement agency BARC measures viewership pattern of 78 crore people in the country, out of which over 67 crore people watched News18 Network channels in the last one year, which means about 86% viewers watched news channels of our network. News18 Network is not just the largest television news network but is also the largest digital news brand present in multiple languages. In fact News18 Network has more monthly viewers (41 crore) than the entire claimed readership of newsprint readers in a month.”