ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

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Mapping and Measuring Media Ownership and Control

A response to the paper “Mapping the Power of Major Media Companies in India” (EPW, 21 July 2018) by Anuradha Bhattacharjee and Anushi Agrawal highlights its inability to analytically explain the construct of “media market,” the consequent mischaracterisation of the extant scholarship on the Indian media industry, and engages with the gaps and inconsistencies in collating empirical details in the paper.

Mapping the Power of Major Media Companies in India

There are 12 major producers of news content in India; eight business houses have significant presence in multiple sectors, and dominate specific market segments. The emerging oligopolistic nature of the Indian media sector is examined. Using ownership patterns as a proxy for control over the media and the information it disseminates, the control that prominent media companies exercise across various markets in which they operate is mapped. Detailed information has been collected across 11 internationally accepted content and carriage media industry sectors. Standard economic indices for each media sector have been used for arriving at the extent of concentration in the media industry.

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