''Zee Media Corporation Limited'' (abbreviated as ZMCL; formerly Zee News Limited) is the news broadcasting company of the

Essel Group Essel Group, (also known as Zee Group) is an Indian multinational conglomerate holding company and corporate promoter headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. The company has had business interests in mass media, infrastructure and packag ...

which is controlled by

Subhash Chandra Subhash Chandra Goenka (born 30 November 1950) is an Indian billionaire media baron. He is the chairman of the Essel Group, an Indian media conglomerate and founded Zee TV in 1992. He was also the chairman of Zee Media but resigned as Directo ...

. The company is engaged mainly in the business of broadcasting of news and current affairs, and regional entertainment uplinked from India via satellite television channels. The network has been involved in several controversies and has broadcast fabricated news stories on multiple occasions.List of sources: * * * * * * * *

History

Zee Media Corporation Limited (formerly Zee News Ltd.) was founded by Essel Group and it was incorporated on 27 August 1999, as Zee Sports Ltd. It was a subsidiary of the Zee Telefilms Ltd (later renamed to Zee Entertainment Enterprises). The company was reincorporated on 27 May 2004, as Zee News Ltd. It was demerged as a separate company of the Essel Group in 2006. In 2013, Zee News Ltd changed its name to Zee Media Corporation Limited. It was involved in a joint venture with the

Dainik Bhaskar ''Dainik Bhaskar ''is India's largest Hindi-language daily newspaper owned by the Dainik Bhaskar Group. According to Audit Bureau of Circulations, it is ranked 3rd in the world by circulation and is the largest newspaper in India by circula ...

Group for the publication of the Daily News & Analysis newspaper but the paper was discontinued in 2019 after suffering losses. The corporation also runs the Zee Institute of Media Arts (ZIMA) which is owned by Zee Learn, the schooling subsidiary of the Essel Group.

Operated channels by Zee Media Corporation

The

Zee Media Corporation Limited ''Zee Media Corporation Limited'' (abbreviated as ZMCL; formerly Zee News Limited) is the news broadcasting company of the Essel Group which is controlled by Subhash Chandra. The company is engaged mainly in the business of broadcasting of news ...

(ZMCL) operates a number of other channels, some in regional

languages Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...

with the stated intent of providing a pan-Indian reach.

Current channels

Former/Defunct channels

Online

Zee News operates the Daily News & Analysis and Zee News websites to provide online coverage of the channel. The Zee5 website which is owned by the

Zee Entertainment Enterprises Zee Entertainment Enterprises (formerly Zee Telefilms) is an Indian media conglomerate owned by Essel Group. Headquartered in Mumbai, it has interests in television, print, internet, film, businesses related to mobile contents, and operates 45 ...

is used to platform coverage of other ZMCL channels. The World is One News (WION) channel operates its own WION website. The ZMCL also owns the India.com news website. * Zee News Website: English and Hindi language online news coverage service of Zee News. * Daily News & Analysis Website: English language online news coverage service. It is branded under the DNA program of Zee News. * Zee5 Website: Streaming service which hosts ZMCL news channels. * WION Website: English language online news coverage service of World is One News. * India.com: English and Hindi language news website owned by ZMCL.

Newspaper

The ''Daily News & Analysis'' was an English-language

broadsheet A broadsheet is the largest newspaper format and is characterized by long Vertical and horizontal, vertical pages, typically of . Other common newspaper formats include the smaller Berliner (format), Berliner and Tabloid (newspaper format), ta ...

newspaper owned by the Zee Media Corporation Limited. It was launched on 30 July 2005 and branded under the Daily News & Analysis (DNA) program of Zee News. It was primarily circulated in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

and discontinued on 9 October 2019 citing recurring losses.

Controversies and criticism

Zee Media Corporation Limited has been involved in many controversies.

Jindal Group incident

The channel was tried for allegedly extorting ₹1 billion from the Jindal Group revealed through a sting operation. Two senior journalists Sudhir Chaudhary and Sameer Ahluwalia were arrested. The two were sent to 14-day judicial custody in

Tihar jail Tihar Prisons, also called Tihar Jail and Tihar Ashram, is a prison complex in India and the largest complex of prisons in South Asia. Run by Department of Delhi Prisons, Government of Delhi, the prison contains nine central prisons, and is one ...

and were ultimately released on bail.

Naveen Jindal Naveen Jindal (born 9 March 1970) is an Indian billionaire industrialist, and a former Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha from Kurukshetra, Haryana in the 14th and 15th Lok Sabha. He currently serves as the Chairman of Jindal Steel and Powe ...

had accused the two journalists of trying to extort in advertisements for Zee News from him through blackmail by threatening to air stories against his company in the

Coalgate scam The Coal allocation scam, dubbed in media as Coalgate, is a major political scandal concerning the Indian government's allocation of the nation's coal deposits to public sector enterprise (PSEs) and private companies. In a draft report issued i ...

. Zee News denied the charges and made counter claims of Jindal offering them to halt their investigations against

Jindal Steel Jindal Steel and Power Limited (JSPL) is an Indian steel company based in New Delhi. JSPL is a part of OP Jindal Group, and a leading player in steel, mining, and infrastructure in India. The company produces steel through backward integration ...

's involvement in the scam but filed no charges. In July 2018, the Jindal Group withdrew the case against Zee News and both parties to the litigation stated that an out of court settlement had been reached which remains undisclosed.

Cases of fabrication

Jawaharlal Nehru University sedition controversy

''Zee News'' reported that students from the Democratic Students' Union (DSU) raised "anti-India" slogans such as ''Bharat ki barbadi'' (Destruction of India) and ''Pakistan Zindabad'' (Long live Pakistan) in an event on the

Jawaharlal Nehru University Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is a public major research university located in New Delhi, India. It was established in 1969 and named after Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister. The university is known for leading faculties and r ...

campus. In a letter Vishwa Deepak, a journalist working at the channel gave a statement that "our biases made us hear ''Bhartiya Court Zindabad'' (Long live Indian courts) as ''Pakistan Zindabad.''" Vishwa Deepak later resigned from the channel after expressing reservations over its "biased coverage". The footage on the newscast of Zee News had formed the basis of charges filed by the

Delhi Police The Delhi Police (DP) is the law enforcement agency for the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). Delhi Police comes under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Government of India. In 2015, sanctioned strength of Delhi ...

. Sudhir Chaudhary, editor and prime time anchor of the channel however on a telecast made a statement saying "our channel only showed what was happening there, whatever we have shown is 100% authentic." A forensic report of the

however later stated that the footage was doctored.

GPS Chips in ₹2000 currency notes

Anchor Sudhir Chaudhary ran a Daily News and Analysis program announcing that the

Indian 2000-rupee note The Indian 2000-rupee banknote (₹2000) is a denomination of the Indian rupee. It was released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 8 November 2016 after the demonetisation of ₹500 and ₹1000 banknotes and has been in circulation since ...

issued after the 2016 Indian banknote demonetisation by the government have GPS chips which will allow the government to track currency, thereby reducing corruption. The

Minister of Finance A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government finances, economic policy and financial regulation. A finance minister's portfolio has a large variety of names around the world, such as "treasury", " ...

Arun Jaitley Arun Jaitley (28 December 1952 – 24 August 2019) was an Indian politician and attorney. A member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Jaitley served as the Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs of the Government of India from 2014 to 2019. Jait ...

dismissed the report as being rumours. The

Reserve Bank of India The Reserve Bank of India, chiefly known as RBI, is India's central bank and regulatory body responsible for regulation of the Indian banking system. It is under the ownership of Ministry of Finance, Government of India. It is responsible for ...

has also given a statement that no such chips are present in the currency notes. The presence of "nano GPS" in the currency notes has been classified as a

hoax A hoax is a widely publicized falsehood so fashioned as to invite reflexive, unthinking acceptance by the greatest number of people of the most varied social identities and of the highest possible social pretensions to gull its victims into pu ...

being spread on social media.

Navjot Singh Sidhu – Alwar controversy

Zee News telecasted a video with the claim that the slogans of ''Pakistan Zindabad'' were raised at a rally in

Alwar Alwar (Pronunciation: Help:IPA/Hindi and Urdu, �lʋəɾ is a city located in India's National Capital Region (India), National Capital Region and the administrative headquarters of Alwar district, Alwar District in the state of Rajasthan. ...

presided over by the

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...

politician,

Navjot Singh Sidhu Navjot Singh Sidhu (born 20 October 1963) is an Indian National Congress politician, television personality and retired international cricketer. He is the former President of Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee. Formerly, he was the Minister of To ...

. Sidhu accused Zee News of playing a doctored video and threatened to file a defamation suit against Zee News. Sidhu stated that slogans of '' Jo Bole So Nihal'' were misconstrued as being in favor of Pakistan. Zee News accused Sidhu of calling a news broadcast to be fake news and sent a defamation notice to him. The notice demanded an apology from him within 24 hours and threatened to pursue legal recourse if an apology was not issued by him.

Mahua Moitra criminal defamation case

Zee News telecasted a show featuring editor-in-chief Sudhir Chaudhary where he claimed that

Trinamool Congress The All India Trinamool Congress (English: All India Grassroots Congress; AITC), colloquially the Trinamool Congress ( TMC) is an Indian political party which is predominantly active in West Bengal. The party is led by Mamata Banerjee, the cur ...

legislator

Mahua Moitra Mahua Moitra (born 12 October 1974) is an Indian politician and a Member of parliament in the 17th Lok Sabha from Krishnanagar, West Bengal. She contested and won the seat in the 2019 Indian general election as an All India Trinamool Congress ...

had plagiarized author Martin Longman in her maiden speech after being elected to the

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-past ...

. Moitra accused the channel of false reporting and submitted a breach of privilege motion against Zee News and Sudhir Chaudhary. Martin Longman responded and stated that the legislator did not plagiarise him. Subsequently, Moitra filed a criminal defamation case against Chaudhary.

Coverage of 2020 Delhi election results

The 2020 Delhi Legislative Assembly election was held on 8 February 2020. The exit poll results predicted the

Aam Aadmi Party The Aam Aadmi Party (; AAP) is a political party in India, as one of the national political parties. The AAP was founded in November 2012 by Arvind Kejriwal and his then-companions following the 2011 Indian anti-corruption movement, popular ...

to retain their government in

National capital territory of Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

. The Zee News telecast of the exit poll results featured Sudhir Chaudhary who indulged in polemic commentary against the voters of the election. He stated that the people of Delhi had chosen Pakistan over

Hindustan ''Hindūstān'' ( , from '' Hindū'' and ''-stān''), also sometimes spelt as Hindōstān ( ''Indo-land''), along with its shortened form ''Hind'' (), is the Persian-language name for the Indian subcontinent that later became commonly used by ...

and that the rule of

Mughals The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

will now return. He further alleged the people of Delhi are lazy and only concerned about "freebies" and that issues like

Ram Mandir Ram Mandir is a Hindu temple that is being built in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, India, at the site of Ram Janmabhoomi, according to the ''Ramayana'' the birthplace of Rama, a principal deity of Hinduism. The temple construction is being supervised ...

, Balakot airstrike and Revocation of Article 370 do not matter to them which is why they have rejected the

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...

. The telecast resulted in backlash and mockery of Zee News and Sudhir Chaudhary on social media.

Ban in Nepal

On 9 July 2020, Nepal's satellite and cable television operators banned Zee News and some other Indian privately owned news channels, citing "propaganda and defamatory report against Nepal government".

References

{{Authority control Essel Group Television broadcasting companies of India Mass media companies of India Television networks in India

Broadcasting Broadcasting is the distribution (business), distribution of sound, audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic medium (communication), mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio ...