News Live
News Live is a 24x7 Assamese news television channel with presence across the northeastern region of India including – Assam, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura. The channel calls itself the voice of the North East people, and their website claims that the channel has been on top of the ratings for a long while. The tagline of the channel is “Pushing North East 24x7”, and the channel works on pushing stories from the region to the national and global audience. The Founder Chairperson of the company that runs the channel is Rinki Bhuyan Sarma, the wife of Himanta Biswa Sarma, the Minister in the Assam BJP government.
Audience Share
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Ownership Type
Private
Geographic Coverage
Regional
Content Type
Free-to-air (DTH and Cable operators)
Media Companies / Groups
Pride East Entertainments
Ownership Structure
News Live is owned by Pride East Entertainments Private Limited. The majority of shares of the company is with Riniki Bhuyan Sarma (51.33%) followed by Mrinalini Devi with 18.29% share, Ranjit Bhattacharya with 13.16% share, Bhaskar Sarma with 11.21% share and Kailash Sarma 5.98% share. Riniki Bhuyan Sarma is the wife of Himanta Biswa Sarma and Mrinalini Devi and Kailash Nath Sarma are the parents of Himanta Biswa Sarma. However, Mr. Kailash Nath Sarma, father of Himanta Biswa Sarma passed away but no information is available on share transfers. The Sarma family in total holds 75.6% of shares in Pride East Entertainments Private Limited.
Voting Rights
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Individual Owner
Group / Individual Owner
Ranjit Bhattacharyya
As per the MGT-7 filings of Pride East Entertainments Private Limited, Ranjit Bhattacharyya is listed among the Hindu undivided family along with Mrinalini Devi and Kailash Nath Sarma – which infers that he is related to the Sarma family. No further information was found on Ranjit Bhattacharyya.
Bhaskar Sarma
Bhaskar Sarma is the Promoter and Director of Pride East Entertainments Private Limited. He holds 11.21% share of the company. He is also Director in D S Graha Nirman Private Limited, Assam Chemist Distribution Private Limited, North East Live entertainments private limited and Additional Director in Chandmari Tea Company Private Limited. As per the MGT-7 filings of Pride East Entertainments Private Limited, Bhaskar Sarma is listed among the Hindu undivided family along with Riniki Bhuyan Sarma and Bhuyan Atanu as promoters – hence it can be inferred that he is part of the Sarma family.
General Information
Founding Year
2008
Affiliated Interests Founder
is the Founder Chairman and Managing Director of Pride East Entertainments Private Limited, the company that owns the NewsLive satellite news channel that operates in the North Eastern states of India. Sarma is a lawyer by profession and currently enrolled in the Bar Council of India. Riniki Bhuyan Sarma is the wife of Himanta Biswa Sarma who is currently the Minister of Finance, Health & Family Welfare, Public Works Department, Transformation & Development in the Government of Assam. He is the convener of BJP- Bharatiya Janata Party, North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA).
Affiliated Interests Ceo
is the Chairperson and Managing Director of Pride East Entertainments Private Limited, see above for more.
Affiliated Interests Editor-In-Chief
is the Chief Managing Editor of News Live. He has a Bachelor’s in English from Dibrugarh University in Assam and is a Post Graduate in Radio and Television Journalism from the University of Central Lanchashire, United Kingdom. He was awarded the Sarojini Naidu Prize for Best Reporting in English on Panchayati Raj (Village Self Governance in India) by The Hunger Project in 2006. He is the author of a coffee table book, titled “The Undying Maestro: Bhupen Hazarika”.
Contact
Srimanta Sankardev Path
Christian Basti
Guwahati, Assam
PIN – 781005
Tel.: +91-361-2340900
Email: info@prideeast.org
Website: www.newslivetv.com
Financial Information
Revenue (in Mill. $)
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Operating Profit (in Mill. $)
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Advertising (in % of total funding)
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Market Share
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Further Information
Meta Data
Financial information is available for the holding company but not for the individual channel. Data regarding ownership structure is collected from Ministry of Corporate Affairs website fillings 2017-2018. The company was written to, by email on the 18th March 2019 and by courier on the 22nd March 2019, seeking clarification and confirmation of data collected for the channel and the company. There has been no response from the company.
Mrs Riniki Sarma’s name is spelled as ‘Sharma’ in various sources and that caused confusion as some members of the family including, Bhaskar Sarma and Kailash Nath Sarma were spelled as ‘Sharma’ in different sources. The website of the Newslive spells the name as ‘Sharma’, the document with the shareholders also uses the ‘Sharma’ spelling, however she is registered at the Ministry of Corporate Affairs as Sarma.
