BQ Prime, formerly BloombergQuint, is an Indian business and financial news organization founded as a joint venture of

Bloomberg News Bloomberg News (originally Bloomberg Business News) is an international news agency headquartered in New York City and a division of Bloomberg L.P. Content produced by Bloomberg News is disseminated through Bloomberg Terminals, Bloomberg Televi ...

and Quintillion Media. Its main content is based on the Indian economy, international finance, corporate law and governance and business news. Within six months of going live, the web portal had one million monthly users, and there were plans to open a free-to-air TV channel. In July 2017, digital video analytics provider Vidooly rated BloombergQuint as the ninth most popular news brand among what it termed new-age news publishers. In September 2017, BloombergQuint launched a digital live streaming service available on its website (www.bloombergquint.com), the

Bloomberg Terminal The Bloomberg Terminal is a computer software system provided by the financial data vendor Bloomberg L.P. that enables professionals in the financial service sector and other industries to access Bloomberg Professional Services through which use ...

and BloombergQuint social platforms. The service includes daily live programming from both global and local markets. It launched a

WhatsApp WhatsApp (also called WhatsApp Messenger) is an internationally available freeware, cross-platform, centralized instant messaging (IM) and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by American company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook). It allows us ...

service in November 2017. It also announced a partnership with

Nasscom The National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) is an Indian non-governmental trade association and advocacy group, focused mainly on the technology industry of India. Established in 1988, NASSCOM is a non-profit organis ...

T-Hub T-Hub (Technology Hub) is an innovation intermediary and business incubator based in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. Based on the triple helix model of innovation, it is a partnership between the Government of Telangana, three academic institutes i ...

and the government of

Karnataka Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karnat ...

to launch 'ScaleUP', an initiative designed to help emerging companies and start-ups scale for growth in November 2017.

History

Raghav Bahl Raghav Bahl is an Indian businessman, a serial entrepreneur, and an investor best known for his past ownership of several television channels, including TV18 India. He was the Founding/Controlling shareholder & managing director of Network18 G ...

, the founder and former managing director of

Network 18 Network18 Media & Investments Limited, (formerly SGA Finance and Management Service and Network18 Fincap Limited) commonly referred to as the Network18 Group and sometimes as the Network18–Eenadu Group, is an Indian media conglomerate owned b ...

, set up Quintillion Media along with his wife Ritu Kapur within six months of his controversial exit from Network18 in July 2014. Later, he signed a joint venture with

Bloomberg L.P. Bloomberg L.P. is a privately held financial, software, data, and media company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was co-founded by Michael Bloomberg in 1981, with Thomas Secunda, Duncan MacMillan (Bloomberg), Duncan MacMi ...

to launch a digital product – BloombergQuint and a TV channel. According to the deal, Raghav Bahl would own 74% stake and Bloomberg the remaining 26%; the pact was for a 10-year period, as reported by Livemint.

NASSCOM The National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) is an Indian non-governmental trade association and advocacy group, focused mainly on the technology industry of India. Established in 1988, NASSCOM is a non-profit organis ...

, T-Hub and

Government of Karnataka The Government of Karnataka, abbreviated as, GoK, or simply Karnataka Government, is a democratically-elected state body with the governor as the ceremonial head to govern the Southwest Indian state of Karnataka. The governor who is appointed ...

partnered with BloombergQuint to launch ScaleUp an initiative to help emerging companies and start-ups scale for growth. Somdutta Singh, co-chair of NASSCOM Product Council, was the Chief Strategic Advisor for ScaleUp. On 5 May 2022, the company changed its name from BloombergQuint to BQ Prime.

TV channel

After an initial decision by Quint to scale back operations to focus on digital only, the partnership with Bloomberg continued. While in 2016 the BQ combine had nod of FIPB for an English news channel they were unable to acquire a broadcast licence from the

Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (India) Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (Ministry of I&B) is a ministerial level agency of the Government of India responsible for the formulation and administration of rules, regulations and laws in the areas of information, broadcasting, the ...

. Following this in 2017, BQ acquired a licence of Y TV from Horizon Satellite Services Private Limited and applied for a name change of the licence to BloombergQuint in the Ministry. By 2020, the company decided to shut down the broadcast division and write off Rs 200 crores. By 2022, the partners Bloomberg and Quint parted ways as they still did not have a license. Having failed with Quint, Bloomberg was seeking Indian partners for its third planned stint in the Indian market.

References

{{Bloomberg Bloomberg L.P. Indian news websites Indian companies established in 2016 Mass media companies of India

History

TV channel

See also

References