The Times Group

Bennett Coleman and Company Limited
Private
Industry Mass media
Founded 4 November 1838 (1838-11-04)
Headquarters Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Key people
 Indu Jain
(Chairperson)
Samir Jain
(Vice-Chairman)
Vineet Jain
(Managing Director)
Raj Jain
(Chief Executive Officer)
Products Publishing
Broadcasting
Radio
Film
Entertainment
Web portals
Revenue ₹9,976 crore (US$1.4 billion) (2016)[1]
₹1,292 crore (US$180 million) (2016)[1]
Number of employees
 11,000 (2014)[2]
Website www.timesgroup.com/ Edit this on Wikidata

Bennett Coleman and Company Limited, commonly known as The Times Group,[3][4] is India’s largest media conglomerate, according to Financial Times as of March 2015.[5] The Audit Bureau of Circulations reported in May 2014 that the Times of India had the largest circulation of any English-language newspaper in the world, with 3,321,702 average qualifying sales.[5][6] The company remains a family-owned business as the descendants of Sahu Jain own a majority stake in The Times Group. The Times Group has over 11,000 employees and revenue exceeding $1.5 billion.[2]

History

On 3 November 1838 the Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce was first published, a predecessor of what would become the Times of India.[7][8][9] While starting as a biweekly paper, it was converted to a daily in 1850 and in 1859 the paper was merged with two other papers into the Bombay Times and Standard under editor Robert Knight.[9][10] Two years later, in 1861, the paper got a more national scope with the title The Times of India. Subsequently the paper saw its ownership change several times until 1892 when an English journalist named Thomas Jewell Bennett along with Frank Morris Coleman (who later drowned in the 1915 sinking of the SS Persia) acquired the newspaper through their new joint stock company, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. (BCCL).[9][10] At the time, some 800 people were employed by the paper.

The company, by that time consolidated in the Times of India Group, was taken over from its British owners in 1946 by industrialist Ramakrishna Dalmia.[11][12] He would in 1955 be convicted for embezzlement and during his time in prison the company was run by his son-in-law Sahu Shanti Prasad Jain. Jain would buy the company a few years later and the company would be primarily run by his family in the years after.[12][13] The company expanded its presence in the Indian media sphere by founding different papers and local editions of the Times of India.[10]

See also

  • Publications of The Times Group

References

  1. 1 2 "The BCCL empire—towering over the competition". The Hoot.
  2. 1 2 "Times Group may go for an IPO 'in the long run'". Business Standard. 6 October 2012.
  3. ↑ "Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd.: Private Company Information". Bloomberg. Retrieved 30 July 2018.
  4. ↑ "BENNETT COLEMAN AND COMPANY LIMITED". opencorporates.com. Retrieved 30 July 2018.
  5. 1 2 James Crabtree, Mumbai (23 March 2015). "Uber in tie-up with Times of India digital arm". Financial Times. Retrieved 24 March 2015.
  6. ↑ "Details of most circulated publications for the audit period July - December 2013". Audit Bureau of Circulations. 21 May 2014. Retrieved 24 March 2015.
  7. ↑ The Bombay times and journal of commerce, 1838-1859. National Library of Australia.
  8. ↑ "Bombay Times - Times of India ►". The Times of India. Retrieved 2018-07-09.
  9. 1 2 3 "The Times of India". www.firstversions.com. Retrieved 2018-07-09.
  10. 1 2 3 "3rd November 1838: The Times of India, the newspaper, was founded". www.mapsofindia.com. Retrieved 2018-07-09.
  11. ↑ Rajan, Nalini (2005-08-09). Practising Journalism: Values, Constraints, Implications. SAGE Publications India. ISBN 9788132102618.
  12. 1 2 Kasbekar, Asha (2006). Pop Culture India!: Media, Arts, and Lifestyle. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9781851096367.
  13. ↑ Auletta, Ken (2012-10-08). "Citizens Jain". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2018-07-09.

Further reading

  • Auletta, Ken (October 8, 2012). "Citizens Jain - Why India's newspaper industry is thriving". The New Yorker. Retrieved 30 July 2018.
  • Thakurta, Paranjoy Guha (November 11, 2012). "The Times, the Jains, and BCCL". The Hoot. Retrieved 30 July 2018.
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