The award-winning news channel, New Delhi Television (NDTV), went through a series of controversial incidents in November 2022. From the founders of the channel, Prannoy Roy and his wife, Radhika Roy, resigning as the directors on the board of RRPR Holding Private Limited (RRPRH) to reports calling Adani’s takeover of NDTV ‘hostile’, the channel known for its news has become one of the biggest news of 2022.
The decision to leave NDTV wasn’t an easy one for Prannoy and Radhika, as they were the ones, who had founded it back in 1988. However, as per the reports, after Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy had left their respective positions at the company, RRRP Holding had appointed Sudipta Bhattacharya, Senthil Sinniah Chengalvarayan, and Sanjay Pugalia as directors on the board.
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According to a report in Reuters, Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy could’ve launched a counteroffer in order to stop Gautam Adani from taking a conglomerate step towards acquiring the media firm. Still, it required massive financial muscle. As we all know, Gautam Adani is the richest person in India, with a staggering net worth of Rs. 1,211,460 crores, there wasn’t a chance for Prannoy and Radhika in front of his mammoth wealth.
However, since acquiring the nation’s biggest news channel, Gautam Adani is receiving a lot of flank on social media, as his alleged close ties with the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, are getting special mention by almost everyone. While Adani’s takeover of NDTV can be a subject of debate for months or even years to come, it’s time to get back to 1988, when Prannoy and Radhika laid the foundation of NDTV with no grand plan back then. However, before we get inside their journey, let’s take a quick look at Prannoy and Radhika’s background and family!
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Prannoy Roy was born on October 15, 1949, in Calcutta, West Bengal, to his father, P.L. Roy and Irish mother. His paternal grandfather was Paresh Lal Roy, who is also remembered as the father of Indian boxing. After studying at La Martiniere Calcutta school for some classes, Prannoy was sent to The Doon School for further studies. That was the time when he met the love of his life, Radhika Das. Just like him, Radhika was also born in Calcutta on May 7, 1949, and was studying in an all-girls boarding school, Welham Girls' Boarding School.
During their time in Dehradun in their respective boarding schools, they fell in love with each other. After completing their schooling, Prannoy and Radhika moved to London, United Kingdom, for their higher education degrees. While Prannoy had become a certified chartered accountant and Radhika had qualified as a speech pathologist, everything was going incredibly well for the couple on their respective professional fronts.
After some years in London, Prannoy Roy and Radhika Das finally decided to give their childhood love story the perfect ending at the beginning of their married life. The couple had tied the marital knot in London and had returned to India, reportedly soon after their wedding. Prannoy and Radhika welcomed a baby girl, whom they had named Tara.
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After returning to India, Prannoy Roy had worked as a consultant at Price Waterhouse for many years and was also a digital journalist for Doordarshan and BBC. On the other side, Radhika Roy had begun her career at The Indian Express as a journalist and later joined the India Today magazine. However, she quit her job and went to New York in order to get a post-graduate degree in broadcast journalism. She had also studied television production at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts.
Both Prannoy and Radhika were getting all the knowledge and experience they would need to run their own television production house. Finally, after years of work and experience, Prannoy and Radhika launched NDTV (New Delhi Television) in 1988. The couple had founded India’s first 24x7 news channel and also the first independent television news network in India, which was indeed a remarkable feat for the couple to achieve in the Doordarshan era.
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It was in 2017-18 when CBI raided Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy’s houses in Delhi and Dehradun. The Central Bureau of Investigation took charge after an FIR was registered to the couple’s name and their company, RRPR Holding Pvt Ltd. With serious charges of money laundering and fraud of reportedly Rs. 500 crores, the controversial case shocked the entire media industry.
Although some critics had suggested that the raids by CBI were reportedly a direct consequence of the true journalism that Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy were doing against the government in power, however, the controversy cooled down with time. It had turned out to be a scary example for all the media companies back then to stay away from such practices.
The Global Financial Crisis in 2007-2008 had a massive impact on NDTV's financial stability, as the funds raised for its expansion were exhausted quickly. During that period, Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy had a lot of divestment of assets. In the coming years, the channel suffered significant financial losses.
In the midst of this, Outlook Magazine published the infamous Radio tapes, which damaged the channel’s credibility, as the channel’s poster journalist, Barkha Dutt, appeared to be violating journalistic norms. Moreover, until 2011, NDTV had gone through a major financial crunch, whose scars are still visible in the core of the news channel.
With so many awards and accolades for the news channel, NDTV, under the guidance of its founders, Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy, it is truly an end of an era in news broadcasting in India. However, the journey ahead under the Adani looks quite unpredictable at the moment but surely promises headline-breaking movements for sure.
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