Mumbai: Bloomberg Media today announced the formation of BloombergQuint, a new partnership in India with Quintillion Media, India’s digital news venture founded by serial entrepreneur Raghav Bahl. The partnership will cover broadcast, digital and live events across India, serving business and financial news to one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.
In a new agreement that commenced 1st April, BloombergQuint will harness the unrivalled global resources of Bloomberg with Quintillion Media’s deep market experience to create a revamped business news channel and digital destination for India’s growing business audience.
“At Bloomberg, we’ve set out to build the leading multi-platform global business and financial media company. Currently, almost half of our digital traffic comes from outside the United States and this figure continues to grow. Partnering with Quintillion Media in India is a game-changer for the country’s digital and broadcast media industries, and for Bloomberg Media globally as we take our investment to an exciting new phase,” said Justin B. Smith, Chief Executive Officer, Bloomberg Media. “It was clear when we met with Raghav that we shared a common vision to create India’s premier digitally-led multi-platform business media company.”
Raghav Bahl, founder of Quintillion Media, said, “The combination of Bloomberg Media with Quintillion Media is a powerful one. It will bring a completely new brand of journalism and media experience to India’s increasingly sophisticated business consumer. We will deliver content via technology in a digital-first model that will redefine this space.”
Raghav Bahl founded and scaled Network 18, India’s leading media group. Along with his wife, Ritu Kapur (CEO), he co-founded Quintillion Media in 2014, a digital media company.
Parry Ravindranathan, Managing Director, Bloomberg Media International, added, “Raghav really pioneered the business news genre in broadcast and digital in India. If you combine that with Bloomberg’s deep experience and global leadership in business and financial news and data, this is a powerful combination — especially at this moment when global interest in India is at an all-time high. This also comes at a fortuitous time when Bloomberg celebrates 20 years in India. We will continue to break new ground and deliver great content in Asia’s fastest growing market.”
BloombergQuint plans to launch a new business channel, localized website and live events business in 2016, focusing on high-quality, market moving digital business news content for India’s business and financial professionals. The company has hired former CNBC-TV18 CEO Anil Uniyal and former CNBC-TV18 Executive Editor Menaka Doshi to serve as BloombergQuint’s CEO and Managing Editor respectively. Harsha Subramaniam, the Bloomberg Executive Producer looking after Bloomberg TV India for the past five years, will be overseeing the partnership for Bloomberg across platforms.
“As the fastest growing major economy in the world, India is one of the most important stories we are covering in Asia. I’m glad we are partnering with Raghav and his team who have deep experience reporting on India for the past two decades,” said David Merritt, Executive Editor for Asia Pacific, Bloomberg News.
The new partnership in India joins Bloomberg’s other local presences in the Philippines, Mongolia and Malaysia.
This year, Bloomberg launched its first regional homepage in Asia, forming a new team of digital editors based in Hong Kong to present news, video and feature stories tailored for a growing regional audience. Bloomberg is currently the leader in page views and video unique viewers among business news media in Asia. Recently, Bloomberg TV, available in 19 million homes across Asia Pacific, became the first business and finance channel to launch on HD in Asia. Also this year, Bloomberg Radio introduced four hours of daily programming in Asia.
