MUMBAI: After a break of three years, the English business news channel from the Network 18 group, CNBC TV-18 has come back with its alliance with the daily business newspaper Mint. Starting 1 April, the two organisations have entered into a ‘strategic content alliance’ that allows them to share content, analyses and work on joint editorial initiatives. The partnership is for an undecided period, as of now.
The editorial teams of the two companies will exchange their ideas and plans on a daily basis and decide on the type of content that they will require of each other. One whole page of Mint will be dedicated to the content from the channel such as interviews, stories and analyses with CNBC TV-18 logo on top. On the other hand, some Mint stories will also be featured on the CNBC TV-18 channel, which will be attributed to the newspaper and will have the Mint logo. The exchange of content will be visible even on their online portals livemint.com and moneycontrol.com.
Earlier last year, the network underwent major restructuring, which gave rise to a new integrated newsroom with its broadcast and digital mediums working in sync. “The collaboration with Mint is an extension of our integrated newsroom model. We are on TV, web and now also in print. In today’s world it is essential to be platform agnostic and be present in as many places as possible,” says CNBC TV-18 managing editor Shereen Bhan to indiantelevision.com.
Prior to this, the two were in a similar deal between 2009 and 2011 after which Mint and Bloomberg TV got into a content sharing partnership from 2011 to 2014. Speaking on the deal Bhan says, “The partnership is based on strong synergy. Mint is the leading brand in the business newspaper space. It worked well for us in the past and our values match with each other. Both brands have confidently tried to innovate and stood clearly for differentiated content.”
Though as of now, the contract only involves sharing editorial content, it could evolve to jointly conducting other things as well. “Right now it is a purely editorial exercise but we could collaborate on events later as there would be a natural organic evolution,” adds Bhan.
Speaking about this development, Mint editor R Sukumar through a press statement said, “At Mint, we have always focused on delivering clarity in business news and reaching our readers wherever they are. Our partnership with CNBC-TV18 will enhance our ability to do so.”
When quizzed about Network 18 launching its own newspaper, Bhan laughs it off saying, “I don’t think it is an ideal time to be doing that!”
