#e4mExclusive:  Rahul Kanwal on rebuilding NDTV’s commercial muscle

In his first major interview since taking charge as CEO and Editor-in-Chief of NDTV, Rahul Kanwal addresses the most consequential questions facing the network: editorial freedom under corporate ownership, public trust, the pressure on television revenues, and the challenge of rebuilding one of India's most recognised media brands. 

Edited Excerpts:

You made the transition from newsroom leadership to the CEO's office. How has that transition changed the way you think about journalism?

This is not entirely new in my professional journey. About three years ago, while I was at the India Today Group, I became Executive Director of Business Today. That role combined editorial responsibility with P&L responsibility. I was tasked with transforming Business Today from a largely magazine-first print brand into a multimedia brand.

We built BTTV, expanded live stock-market coverage, and developed the brand across YouTube, digital, social media and the entire 360-degree ecosystem. We also grew Business Today's revenue lines to more than five times the base I had inherited.

The same multimedia approach is now being applied at NDTV on a much larger scale.

That experience taught me the reality every serious news organisation must confront. You have to run a news business that is credible and legitimate, and which reports the news in the manner journalism demands. At the same time, you must ensure that the organisation is financially viable and independent. Editorial credibility and commercial sustainability cannot be treated as disconnected responsibilities.

In industry circles, you are being described as the 'Khatron Ke Khiladi' for taking charge of NDTV when it was facing considerable revenue pressure. How do you view the challenge? How soon can NDTV return to profitability?

NDTV is one of India's most marquee media brands. Internationally, when people think of Indian news, NDTV is often the first brand that comes to mind. That is true in the United States, Africa, Europe and Asia, as well as in India.

So, I do not see this simply as a 'khatra', or danger, because at the core of the assignment is a deeply trusted media institution. You are right that, after the ownership changed and the organisation went through a management transformation, the road ahead had to be charted afresh. I saw that as a tremendous opportunity: to rebuild a new NDTV for a new India, and to give the brand passion, purpose, energy and ideas.

We are only about a year into this journey. If, a few years from now, we have succeeded in building a new NDTV for a new India - a marquee news organisation that people in India and abroad are proud of - it will have been an opportunity worth taking. In that sense, it is a risk worth embracing.

There are a hundred reasons why NDTV might have failed, and only a few levers that can help it succeed. The question is whether we can identify those levers and do what is required in the age of AI and fragmented attention spans, while ensuring that NDTV remains credible, relevant and capable of growth.

It is a huge professional challenge. I am grateful to the management of the Adani Group for considering me worthy of this opportunity and giving me the chance to build the new NDTV. We have only just begun, it will take more time, and ultimately the results will speak for themselves.

When a corporate group owns a news channel, questions inevitably arise about editorial freedom. As Editor-in-Chief, how do you ensure that freedom?

People are entitled to have doubts, and you cannot deny them that right. But if I merely sit here and declare that we are impartial, honest and fearless, nobody is obliged to believe me. People will watch our television channels and examine our digital, YouTube, Instagram and social-media output before making up their minds.

If an organisation has the honesty to show the news, and if its journalists have the moral courage to question leaders, ministers and corporations without fear, audiences will recognise and appreciate it. If the coverage is fake, incomplete, timid or designed to frighten people, audiences will detect that very quickly. You cannot fool people indefinitely through clever claims.

Over the past year, NDTV has grown rapidly across YouTube, digital and social media. On YouTube, the network moved from around number 12 in the ranking to regularly being number one or number two, with growth continuing month after month. We also saw growth on Instagram and on television. Our television ratings had been rising week after week before ratings were suspended.

That tells you that there are people who connect with and appreciate journalism. If they did not, they would not watch it. In that sense, audiences vote for journalism in the same way that citizens vote in an election. If people vote for your journalism, they watch; if they do not trust it, they do not.

My responsibility is to try to earn that trust: to report honestly, truthfully and impartially, and to do so without fear. If people value that honesty, they will stay with us. If they do not, no declaration from me will change their minds.

What, in your view, is the toughest challenge in leading a legacy news brand?

The toughest challenge is relevance and mind space. We live in an attention economy in which attention spans are becoming shorter, as the rise of Instagram and Reels demonstrates. The challenge is to capture attention and occupy mind space without surrendering the values of journalism.

It is relatively easy to capture attention if you position yourself at an extreme. If you are on the extreme right and call the protesting students goons, a certain constituency will respond. If you place yourself entirely on the students' side and portray the government as the worst thing that has happened to India, you will attract another loyal constituency. The difficult question is how to find space in the middle. I believe India's democracy thrives in the middle; that is where our democratic values live and breathe.

I think of NDTV as a big tent of ideas, opinions and shades. It cannot be about one Moses leading everybody and showing them the only path. It is not about what I alone think. Different editors and journalists must be allowed to express different shades of opinion. I do not have to agree with everything every anchor or editor says. A serious newsroom should be able to appreciate those differences.

In some networks, the Editor-in-Chief declares a line on a story and expects every reporter to repeat it. I think that is wrong. Reporters must report what they see around them; their journalism should not be dictated by someone sitting in an air-conditioned studio. Anchors and editors should be able to voice their considered views without a central command sending a line on a WhatsApp group and instructing everyone to repeat it. That is not journalism. It is propaganda.

What have been the principal changes and priorities in rebuilding NDTV?

At one point, there was a tendency at NDTV to say: we are doing very good work, but people are not watching because the ratings system is flawed. I do not accept the logic that your video was the best but nobody saw it, or that your questions were so good that people did not understand them. If you are doing meaningful work, it should create an impact and that impact should be visible.

Whether the platform is Instagram, X, LinkedIn, television or YouTube, you can see whether the work is connecting. The first priority, therefore, has been to ensure that journalism makes a visible impact.

The second priority has been to strengthen NDTV's work on YouTube, social media and digital. The organisation faced financial problems and legal challenges in the preceding years. As a result, experiments that other companies were able to undertake did not happen here because the team was occupied with other battles. We have tried to strengthen those areas.

Third, we have moved towards creating an NDTV multiverse. That includes initiatives around Lifeline and healthcare, anti-ageing and wellness; Launchpad, career progression and upskilling; NDTV Good Times, lifestyle, entertainment, films and luxury; NDTV Auto; and community- and audience-led propositions. The objective is to build a much broader ecosystem around the core NDTV brand.

There is a perception among some people in the industry that NDTV is not making enough editorial impact. What would you say to that?

People are entitled to think whatever they want. What somebody sitting in another newsroom thinks is, frankly, of little concern to me. What matters is whether the people in the news ecosystem, the people we report on and, most importantly, the people who watch us believe that we are making an impact.

When our teams were in Chennai covering Vijay's swearing-in, or in Bengaluru during a leadership transition, dozens of people came up to Shiv Aroor, TM Veeraraghav, Vasudha Venugopal and other members of the NDTV team, said they had watched them on the channel and asked for photographs. That is the impact. What those viewers think matters to me; what somebody sitting in a rival newsroom thinks is inconsequential.

During the Bihar election, I travelled to extremely impoverished areas beyond Purnia and Kishanganj. People there came up and said they had watched my interview on NDTV India and had seen me go into the makhana fields. Remember, this was NDTV India, we had only just begun the new phase, and I was hardly anchoring at all. That demonstrates how deeply the idea of NDTV has penetrated. This is not an ordinary news brand. NDTV consists of four magical letters.

What a jealous competitor in another newsroom thinks of our editorial impact is completely inconsequential. What matters is the view of people from the White House in Washington to Kartavya Bhavan in New Delhi, from the corridors of power in Chennai, Rajasthan and West Bengal to India's streets and villages. Rivals are welcome to think whatever they want.

As NDTV expands into new verticals amid revenue pressures, how will you protect core journalism without spreading resources too thin?

The first priority is to strengthen the core of our journalism and invest in storytelling - in Hindi, in English, on our regional channels and in business news. That is the core, it is the most important part of what we do, and it receives the bulk of our resources, energy and effort.

At the same time, linear television is under pressure, and that is a headwind we cannot deny. AI is also taking away a significant share of traffic that once came through Google Search and Discover. That reality cannot be ignored either. The business question is how to build a sustainable organisation that acknowledges both of those shifts. That is why we need to create an NDTV multiverse.

NDTV World is my biggest passion project because it defines the scale of our ambition. India does not have a global media brand comparable to CNN, Al Jazeera, TRT or even CGTN. There is only one Indian media brand with the potential to become India's voice to the world and the world's window to India, and that is NDTV.

Wherever you travel - Europe, Africa, the Middle East or America - people know NDTV. We have the resources, the capability, the ambition and the appetite to build India's media window to the rest of the world. It also makes business sense because the audience is international and the revenue is dollar-denominated rather than rupee-denominated.

Beyond revenue, NDTV World signals the ambition and determination of the new NDTV to build a global media platform. That will not happen in one year, and it may not happen in two. It will take time, but we are committed to it. India represents almost one-sixth of humanity. What do these people think? What is happening inside India? What does the diaspora think? How is the world looking at India, and how is India looking at the world? Those questions are central to what we are trying to build.

We are taking measured steps rather than booking every investment in the first few months. We will proceed step by step.

NDTV Good Times is another important part of the plan, spanning movies, entertainment and lifestyle. NDTV once had a remarkable show called Band Baajaa Bride, which played a role in introducing Sabyasachi Mukherjee to a wide audience. When he served on the jury of the recent NDTV Art Awards, he reminded me that he had been part of Band Baajaa Bride. We are bringing that programme back, along with properties such as Highway On My Plate and the Food Awards.

The larger idea is to build strong communities. Some will be large; others may be smaller, such as golf, art or photography. But they are meaningful communities. News organisations need direct communities because they cannot assume that Google Search and Discover will continue to send them traffic. You need a compelling value proposition that brings people directly to you.

There are legitimate ways for a news organisation to earn revenue. If the owners wanted a pure-play chief executive, they could have appointed someone from a sales background. They appointed someone from journalism. My job is to ensure that the news remains clean, and I will do everything within my ability to keep it that way.

You have been at NDTV for over a year. How do you assess the outcomes so far, and what have been the biggest highs and lows?

A certificate that I give myself would be meaningless. The biggest high is that NDTV matters again. It has mind space and people are talking about it. Nobody can deny the strength, vitality and ideas now visible in the brand, or the scale of its coverage of news, elections, the Union Budget and Davos.

For reasons that were beyond the control of any one professional, NDTV had fallen out of people's mind space. The fact that it has penetrated that space again - that people are looking at it, engaging with it and caring about what it does - is the most important development. Everything else builds on that foundation.

The Art Awards, Photography Awards, Food Awards and the journalism itself take time to build. We recently held an India-Japan summit. The India Today Conclave, for example, was not built in a day. Large conclaves and intellectual properties are created through delivery year after year, until people develop confidence in the team's ability to execute.

We worked with PGTI on golf last year. We probably did not make as much money from that IP as we could or should have, partly because people did not yet know whether the new NDTV could execute it. They may have remembered that NDTV did golf two decades ago, but they needed to see whether it could do it now. Once they see the delivery, they begin to believe. My job is to make sure they like what they see.

We also held the Business Leadership Awards, attended by the who's who of corporate India and by the Finance Minister. When our teams return next year and say that the awards are back, stakeholders will take the proposition more seriously because they have seen us deliver it. Their earlier concerns were real and legitimate.

Ultimately, it is not what I say that matters. It is what Team NDTV does. People will form an opinion on the basis of what they see, not on the basis of either our claims or the criticism directed at us.

India Today cut around 120 jobs despite not reporting losses. As TV news viewership declines and losses mount, are wider layoffs inevitable and is NDTV considering them?

I cannot comment on the decision India Today has taken. That newsroom remains very dear to me. I spent more than two decades there and developed deep relationships with everyone, from the promoters to the drivers and housekeeping staff. Those people were part of my family and professional ecosystem, and I remain emotionally close to them.

It is very sad that the organisation had to let some people go, but I cannot comment on the management's decision.

The situation at NDTV is different because we are coming from a low base. Given the scale and stature of the brand, television revenue in Hindi, English and business news had fallen very sharply. As we rebuild our editorial strength and our sales machine, the effort is to win business back - business that NDTV is legitimately capable of attracting.

Other large media brands are currently earning much more because they have stronger commercial muscles. NDTV did not have a connected-TV sales team, a dedicated YouTube sales team or an international sales channel. As we build those capabilities, we can begin to monetise the presence of those resources in each function.

But you are right that times are tough. Media economics are deeply flawed, not only in India but around the world. The responsibility of management is to be extremely careful about how money is spent, to stretch every rupee as far as possible, to seek the maximum return on investment and to chart a viable path to profitability at the earliest possible point.

We will try to do that in the right way. We will put in the hard work needed to make it happen and work towards making NDTV financially independent and viable.

Realistically, how much time are you giving yourself to complete this turnaround?

That is an internal conversation. I recognise that, as Chief Executive, I will ultimately be judged not by what I say in this interview but by the financial returns the organisation delivers quarter after quarter in the period ahead. That is the ultimate litmus test, and it is a test I am committed to delivering on.

We are working extremely hard on a range of ideas - some of which we have discussed here and some of which we have not - to build alternate revenue streams.

The answer is not blackmail journalism: 'If you want this interview, pay me; if you do not pay me, I will not interview you.' That is not how a credible news organisation should earn money. There are proper, legitimate ways to build revenue through ecosystems, communities and intellectual properties. That is how we intend to build the business.

Why have so many of NDTV’s recent hires come from one particular organisation? Are those candidates being given an advantage?

To the best of my knowledge, many journalists from many different organisations have joined NDTV. When we assess a candidate, we do not look at the bio-data merely to see where that person currently works or whether that person comes from one preferred institution. We examine the person's work, background and skills.

It is my good fortune, and NDTV's good fortune, that so many talented professionals have joined us. No single individual can rebuild NDTV. The brand will rise through the accumulated hard work, dedication and effort of many people.

Across strategy, revenue, sales, planning, anchoring, editing and television, we try to appoint the best person for the role and maintain a level playing field. There should be no discrimination on the basis of the organisation from which someone comes, or on the basis of whether the candidate is a man or a woman. Everyone should be treated with respect and given the opportunity to grow professionally.

For me, whether you are successful is less important than whether you took the right path, acted honestly and did good work. What your team says about you when you are not in the room matters more than the praise it offers while you are standing in front of it. When the cameras are off and nobody senior is present, what do people say about you? That is the real test.

My father used to say that success is not determined by how many careers you ruined; it is determined by how many careers you built. How many people consider you a mentor? How many say they learned something from you or benefited from knowing and observing you? That is a priceless treasure, and it is the treasure I have always tried to earn.

What bothers you most in your role as Editor-in-Chief and CEO of NDTV?

The role AI is playing, and the fact that traffic from Google Search and Discover is declining almost week after week rather than merely month after month, is a major concern for every digital news publisher.

NDTV is more fortunate than most because a large share of its traffic comes directly to the homepage and the app. Many people engage directly with the website. But we cannot take that advantage for granted.

The downturn in Google Search and Discover traffic is upending established assumptions about the digital news business. That is why we must build the multiverse I described with speed and purpose. Before we arrive at a 'Google Zero' world, in which platforms send little or no referral traffic, we need an ecosystem capable of sustaining the organisation.

When algorithms determine where brands, news and users go, a media organisation ultimately possesses only the trust, credibility and belief of its consumers. Those qualities are what bring people back to the brand's own homepage or app. Building that relationship is of immense importance to us.

Time is running out as the industry moves towards Google Zero. We are therefore trying to rebuild and diversify quickly, so that NDTV has assets and communities capable of lasting in that scenario.

Will we see you return to anchoring a main show? With so much news unfolding, do you miss being on air?

Staying away from a daily anchor role is a conscious decision. You cannot be the team's coach and captain and still insist on batting yourself. The moment an Editor-in-Chief also anchors a daily prime-time programme, a large amount of newsroom energy becomes concentrated on making that one person's show shine.

An editor has to choose whether to be on the field or off it, and must be comfortable allowing other people and brands to outshine him. One of Prannoy Roy's great strengths was that he was comfortable with the stardom of Rajdeep Sardesai, Barkha Dutt, Arnab Goswami and the other stars of that extraordinary newsroom. He was comfortable with other people becoming more famous than he was.

The same was true of Arun Puri. India Today had a legion of editorial stars, including Prabhu Chawla and Shekhar Gupta, and he was comfortable with that galaxy of talent.

I try to hire people who are smarter than I am. Across functions, you need people who are better than you and who add value to what you are building. That is how an institution of value is created. If you are insecure and continually hire people who are less competent than you, you will never build a great organisation.

If you examine builders such as Raghav Bahl at Network18, Arun Puri at India Today and Prannoy Roy at NDTV, they were comfortable in their own skin and comfortable with others outshining them. That quality is extremely important.

As CEO and Editor-in-Chief, I cannot be in the middle of an editorial review, a sales review or a board meeting and run out to record an interview for my prime-time show. That would be unfair to the audience because a serious programme requires research, preparation, practice and thought. I have to decide whether I am thinking about what I will say on air that night or about what we are doing with the app, the website, Nepal, the NDTV World Summit in October and the wider business.

This is not a new choice for me. At 27, I anchored Aaj Tak's 9 pm news when television news was at its peak. I would step outside and people would want to speak to me and take photographs. I gave that programme up when I received the opportunity to run Headlines Today. People told me I was mad to leave a flagship 9 pm bulletin at a time before social media and Instagram, when television was the dominant medium. But if I wanted to work as the editor of Headlines Today, I could not remain at Aaj Tak until 10 at night and still expect to run another channel properly.

Similarly, when I became News Director at India Today, I gave up Seedhi Baat. Again, people asked how anyone could leave a programme that offered regular access to chief ministers and senior ministers. My answer was that if I had to guide and shape the work of a hundred reporters, I could not spend two days every week travelling to Gorakhpur, Mumbai or elsewhere to record my own show.

The same principle applies now. If I genuinely want to build NDTV for the future, strengthen the brand and breathe new life into it, I have to devote my energy to that task. I cannot keep interrupting the job to go and do my own programme.

When you joined NDTV, someone famously declared that 'NDTV is now dead'. What do you make of that comment?

No single person can determine whether NDTV lives or dies. Over three decades, a legion of exceptional journalists, editors, anchors, producers and videographers built this brand. Its connection with audiences in India and around the world runs very deep.

The work we do will determine whether the brand stands, thrives and moves confidently into the future. I know there are people in several newsrooms who would like nothing better than for NDTV to die. An NDTV that is alive, energetic and breaking news from Davos, during the Budget and through elections is their worst nightmare.

If you have a competitor capable of matching you, beating you or outthinking you, the instinctive reaction may be to wish that competitor away. That is understandable, but nobody can simply kill NDTV.

The idea of NDTV is deeply rooted in the minds of its consumers. My responsibility is to keep that idea alive, build on it and give it a new manifestation with which people connect - something they like, watch and appreciate. That work, rather than any one person's approval or dislike, will determine whether NDTV lives, thrives or dies.

BARC television news ratings have been suspended. Will that further affect channel revenues as the festive season approaches? The new television ratings policy also opens the door to multiple measurement agencies. Is that a good idea, and should the present monopoly end?

 The ratings system is deeply flawed, and much of the criticism directed at BARC and at the way ratings are collected and presented is valid. But there must still be a mechanism for determining who is being watched and by how many people.

The Election Commission has limitations and the electoral process may not always be as fair as it should be. Yet we have seen in by-elections, in Chennai and elsewhere that, when people make up their minds, the result becomes visible and the vote speaks. In the same way, news must have an independent measurement mechanism.

We cannot have a situation in which BARC is absent and there is no alternative. Newsrooms contain a great deal of ego and delusion; every anchor and Editor-in-Chief is convinced that he or she is the best. There must be an external yardstick that no newsroom controls.

I am keen for the BARC system to return at the earliest possible point. I am equally keen to see multiple sources of ratings rather than only one. The government has encouraged other players to enter, and the more credible measurement systems we have, the better. If a channel performs well under one system, people can call it a fluke. If it performs strongly across three or four independent systems, the industry has to acknowledge that something is happening.

Working hard without receiving ratings is like fighting an election and never being told who won. Your teams and booth-level workers have campaigned, but no result is announced. That is a terrible situation. We want measurement to be fair and free, and we want to know the outcome.

The suspension is particularly unfair to NDTV because the channel is being priced on the basis of last year's ratings even though it has grown considerably since then. How much has it grown? We will know only when ratings return. We want the issue resolved quickly so that people can see what is happening.

NDTV has dropped the ‘24x7’ suffix and introduced the tagline ‘When It Really Matters’. What does this rebranding signal about NDTV’s editorial vision and identity across platforms?

We have also dropped the '24x7' suffix. It is now simply NDTV. When NDTV was launched, live television news itself was the defining proposition. Today, people may encounter us on television, the app, the website, LinkedIn, Instagram or another social platform. It is one NDTV - one brand and one identity across formats.

The larger network proposition is 'NDTV - When It Really Matters'. During an election, the Budget or a major breaking story, where do people go? The internet is filled with polished, synthetic material generated by AI, but the fact that something is well written does not make it true, meaningful or purposeful.

Our hope is that, when the news really matters, audiences come to NDTV - on the app, the website, television, Instagram or any other platform. When it really matters, India should turn to NDTV. That audience behaviour, more than the declaration of a tagline, will show whether we have earned trust.