At the FICCI Frames 2025 summit, Aroon Purie, Founding Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of the India Today Group, warned that billionaire-owned news channels and corporate pressures are weakening independent journalism.
Purie said dissent is shrinking not due to state censorship but because of balance sheets, sales targets, and the rise of billionaire-backed media outlets. According to him, large corporations use news not as a business, but as a tool to gain influence, undermining both profitability and journalistic quality. He pointed out that news channels rely heavily on advertising from governments and corporations, making their independence fragile. “The hand that gives can also take away,” he said.
Purie criticized the government for failing to create a fair playing field. He called carriage fees a burden on the industry and questioned TRAI’s regulation of channel prices as if they were essential goods like rice or wheat.
For consumers, he noted, news is almost free. Newspapers survive on “raddi economics,” where old papers sold to scrap dealers often earn back more than their purchase cost. Despite disruptions, Purie believes India remains the world’s largest news market, but the real challenge lies in fixing its broken business model.
