Labyrinths behind the screen: Ownership and control in TV cable distribution

ABSTRACT The anxieties of consolidation and concentration have been central to the study of the media business across the world. Debates on media ownership have either pointed at business models and regulatory conditions leading to market concentration or the increasing accumulation of interests by political actors in the media business. This paper delves into the simultaneity of such dynamics in India, as refracted in the business of TV distribution. Once merely a downstream segment of the visible and highly researched broadcasting segment, cable distribution has emerged as the prime commercial locus, technological driver, and regulatory site in India’s TV business. Our paper unearths the modes of expansion of leading cable distribution companies across various regions of India. We find the expansion of cable companies rested on a dual engagement with regional ecologies of distribution: first, pursuing commercial growth by capturing, rather than developing, pre-existing regional markets, and second, flexibly engaging with, rather than uniformly steamrolling, incumbent regional actors. To manage these interests, a complex network of subsidiaries, interlocking directorships, and web of employees were created. Such a business-model not only propelled the expansion of what have today become gigantic, cross-regional cable companies but also spawned their peculiar ownership structure.