I read the Blog today! ....Oh Boy.....

Just when people had written off any kind of alliance or tie up between the Times Group & Mid Day, we get to hear this!

Ravi Dhariwal, Executive Director of Bennett Coleman, and Tariq Ansari, Managing Director of MiD DAY Multimedia, made the following joint statement in Mumbai: ‘The Times of India, with its leadership position in the morning broadsheet market and MiD DAY, with a successful formula for the middle-of-the day, are in fact complementary players. With this alliance we will endeavour to garner a larger market share of both readers and advertising in major metros of the country’.

For the complete story, check out this link:

http://www.mid-day.com/news/city/2006/december/148260.htm

Exhibit 19 on http://www.mediaha.blogspot.com/ posted on March 01, 2005 had fuelled rumours that the Times Group might up its stake in Mid Day. With the kind of financial powerhouse that the Times is - I guess, this too isn't much far away.


Scroll down a bit more - Exhibit number 11 on mediaha says:

Exhibit Eleven
Saturday, February 12, 2005

Apology

This refers to the item ‘Times to tie up with Reuters for news. Name and last-minute hiccup over Sunil Lulla appt to be resolved’ that appeared on Mediaah! on Thursday, February 10, 2005.We have received a legal notice from Mr Rajnish M Singh, Advocate, on behalf of his client, Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd, saying that the item harmed the reputation and goodwill of his client. That was not the intent of the news item and not the intent of Mediaah!In his letter, Mr Singh has also said that the item is totally baseless and has no substance or truth in it.While Mediaah! would stand by the information published, Mediaah! apologises to Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd and has deleted the above mentioned item with immediate effect.

And I was thinking 'Times Now' is a tie up between Times & Reuters (sic).

The mission statement of the Times Group reads, "We are in the business of aggregating and delivering customers to our advertisers." I keep getting this feeling that strategic or non-strategic, commercialisation and profit-making are gaining credence over everything else within the media domain. So, what do we expect next? I guess this:

Exhibit Three
Thursday, January 01, 2004

Shocker! Times to allow advertising on edit page and sell Medianet Buoyed by the response the main edit page article on Aventis that The Times of India carried earlier this year, the newspaper has taken a dramatic decision of allowing advertising on its edit page as well as allowing Medianet to get active with some of the content on the page.


Can it get any murkier? I guess we should now expect the Gen-Next of Advertorials - any guesses?