Overview

• Speaking at FICCI FRAMES 2025 on October 7, the India Today Group founder argued that balance-sheet demands and ad sales targets now constrain newsrooms more than overt state censorship.
• He said billionaire-run channels treat news as a vehicle for influence, eroding viable business models and harming the quality of journalism.
• Purie warned that dependence on corporate and government advertising leaves editorial independence under constant threat.
• He criticized continuing carriage fees and price regulation, saying such policies have left the broadcast sector in poor condition despite employing more than 1.7 million people.
• Framing the stakes, he cited India’s scale—over 100,000 registered publications and roughly 900 satellite channels, including 375 24x7 news channels—and described print’s low-pricing 'raddi economics' as part of a deeper, structural business-model problem.