Emergence of Cross Media Ownership & its Impact on Indian Media Industry

Media industry is facing tremendous changes, adopting new technologies and new business strategies. Media is no more a social institution which is a business organisation started already spreading its wing everywhere. Many Indian media groups have entered into the Cross Media Ownership (CMO). They are buying existing media organisations and starting additional media constantly. They own television/radio channels, newspapers, magazines and online media. Some media groups are expanding their businesses into various platforms. Due to the expansion, the groups monopolized the industry. Media critics, policy makers, social activists are surprised on the emergence and style of operation. Media industry is now organized and has developed the corporate model. It provides more freedom to the journalists to produce better output and can easily adopt new technologies and machineries. Staff members are enjoying with good salary and welfare schemes. The news reaches the entire audience through various media and production cost is reduced. They can use same news content to the entire network and advertising revenue is increased. On the other hand numbers of unhealthy issues are promoted. Availability of news is limited, so audience watch T V, listen to Radio, read newspaper where the content is mostly the same. It becomes boring and they will never know the other news. CMO uses its network properly to popularise its media. Small organizations face difficulties due to the dominance. Some older companies voluntarily sell their media as they cannot withstand the competition. CMO is created a complex situation in the Indian media industry.