Asianet News

Asianet News is an Indian Malayalam-language free-to-air news channel, operated by the Asianet News Network, a subsidiary of Asianxt Digital Technologies. The channel is based in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. Asianet News is currently one of the market leaders in the Malayalam television news sector.

Malayalam general entertainment channels, Asianet, Asianet Plus, and Asianet Movies, owned by JioStar (a joint venture between Viacom18 and Disney India) presently have no connection with the Asianet News Network channels.

Asianet, Asianet Satellite Communications and Asianet News were founded by Raji Menon. Initially, Raji Menon owned a 93% stake. A 5% stake was with Raghu Nandan (Menon’s elder brother). Sashi Kumar was a paid employee of Asianet and Raji Menon's nephew, whom Menon gifted a 2% stake first, increased to 26% and then to a 45% stake later at Sashi Kumar's request. Raji Menon bought back the shares, earlier gifted to Sashi Kumar in 1999 at an agreed price, and took over full control of Asianet.

Asianet Communications was the first entertainment television company in Malayalam.

Asianet Communications was toying with the idea of a news channel - there was none in Malayalam - for a long time. It was with this intention that Asianet Global - their second channel - was launched in June 2001. The channel was targeting the huge expatriate Malayali population in the Middle East and Europe. However, as it turned out, there were very few news-based programmes on the channel and most of them later gave way to film-based entertainment programmes.

With Asianet Global not fetching returns, the management decided to go in for an entertainment channel called "Asianet Plus" and terminate Asianet Global. Midway through the launching and wind-up process, there was a rethink and the concept of a news channel was revived. It was initially reported in the media that a news channel would be launched by December 2002. The channel was expected to have news programmes in the evenings after which there would be a variety of entertainment programmes. Hourly news bulletins were also expected. Asianet Global was eventually renamed as "Asianet News" on 1 May 2003. The company's MD, K. Madhavan, told the media that the entire channel had also been restructured in the process.

Chandrasekhar was a Bangalore-based businessman of Kerala origin. In late 2006 Raji Menon partially pulled out of Asianet turning over control to Chandrasekhar. At the time, Asianet was the leader amongst the Malayalam channels accounting for 35% of Kerala's total advertisement market.

Chandrasekhar had acquired a 51% stake in the Asianet channels (Asianet, Asianet News, and Asianet Plus) through Jupiter Entertainment Ventures (JEV) in October 2006. While there was no official word from Asianet on the size of the investment, the figure is thought to range between INR 120-150 crore. The remaining 49% stake was still held by Menon and Asianet MD K. Madhavan with the Zee Group holding a small 3% stake. Madhavan continued as the MD of Asianet, while Chandrasekhar took over as the chairman of the company. Asianet Communications soon launched its foray into the Kannada and Telugu television industry with Asianet Suvarna and Asianet Sitara.