Kolkata TV In a move reminiscent of jute mill takeovers, Union rail minister Mamata Banerjee led Trinamool Congress West Bengal’s main opposition party has wrested control of Kolkata TV, which until May was among the most watched Bengali television news channels, without buying a single share of SST Media Pvt. Ltd, the firm behind the channel.
Backed by the Trinamool Congress and young Kolkata based entrepreneur Kaustuv Ray, the channel is now being run by its 171 employees, while SST Media’s founder and former managing director Tathagata Dutta is struggling to secure his personal assets from being seized by lenders. SST Media is currently facing liquidation proceedings at the Calcutta high court.
In January 2008, Hyderabad based Associated Broadcasting Co. Pvt. Ltd, which runs TV9 news channels in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat and Mumbai, had acquired a 51% stake in SST Media for Rs16 crore.
Associated Broadcasting had paid a premium of Rs3.55 on the face value of SST Media’s shares and had acquired them for Rs13.55 each.The channel went aground because it couldn’t generate enough revenues, said Dutta.
Kolkata TV’s operating expenditure was Rs1.7-1.8 crore a month, and at least one third of it was the cost of distributing the channel through cable operators. But in terms of audience, we were pretty much on top No. 1 among Bengali news channels for a long time, Dutta said.
Persuaded by the Trinamool Congress, Ray, whose RP Group manufactures computers and produces television software, emerged as the white knight.
In June, it offered to buy the shares held by Associated Broadcasting. But after several rounds of discussions, talks fell through because they couldn’t agree on a price. is a 24x7 news Bengali channel, launched by SST Media in the year 2006.
It is one of the Bangla language based news channels in India.Now it is taken by R.P group.
