Viacom18 Media Pvt. Ltd.is one of India’s leading entertainment networks. It is a joint venture operation between TV18 and Viacom CBS . The company is based in Mumbai. Under Viacom 18 there are many quintessential brands that we come across almost every day. The company is a joint venture between Network18, which owns 51% of the company’s stakes, and Viacom CBS, with a 49% stake. According to the Viacom 18 website it defines entertainment in India by touching the lives of people through its properties on air, online, on ground, in shop and through cinema.
Viacom 18 Media Pvt. Limited was founded in November 2007. Its headquarters is in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Rahul Joshi is the CEO of this joint venture; he is also the Managing Director Network 18. Viacom 18 has about 5 lines of business, 53 channels under it, more than a team of 1500 to keep the company up and running and most importantly it has a wide range of audience that it carters to. It reaches about 600 million people in India! It provides various services such as broadcasting, digital, experiential, filmed entertainment and consumer products.
After its conception, the company has reached to great heights. It has expanded its wings not only in the television business but also in cinema, music and now it provides services for online streaming too. Their iconic brands have become a part of our daily life and household.
It provides its customers a vast array of channels such as COLORS, Rishtey, Rishtey Cineplex, MTV, MTV Beats, Vh1 India, COLORS INFINITY, Comedy Central, COLORS Marathi, COLORS Gujarati, COLORS Bangla, COLORS Kannada, COLORS Super, COLORS Odiya, Nickelodeon, Sonic, Nick Junior, Nick HD+, VOOT, Viacom18 Motion Pictures, Viacom18 Integrated Network Solutions and Viacom18 Consumer Products.Viacom 18 isn’t just popular in India but rather it caters for its international consumers as well, with the launch of Colors in the United States in January of 2010. The channel is called Aapka Colors. It was a joint venture with Sun Network to form Sun 18, with a 50-50 distribution. It also launched Colors HD in Malaysia on Astro Malaysia, with Malay and English subtitles on 1 October 2019.
Viacom18 Studios or Viacom18 Motion Pictures is another of its subsidiaries its main task is to produce and market full length feature films as well as films on digital platforms, web series and short films. Viacom 18 has branched out into subscription video on demand services with Voot and Voot Kids. Voot is an OTT platform which started out in March 2016. The streaming service is available in Hindi, English, Kannada, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu. It hosts over 40,000 hours of video content.
The company is forever expanding with its new and upcoming channels such as Rishtey Bhojpuri, Colors Punjabi, Colors Telugu and Colors Malayalam.