Bennett, Coleman and Company Limited, commonly known as The Times Group, is India’s largest media conglomerate, according to Financial Times as of March 2015. The Audit Bureau of Circulations reported in May 2014 that The Times of India had the largest circulation of any English-language newspaper in the world, with 3,321,702 average qualifying sales. The company remains a family-owned business with Sahu Jain family owning a majority stake in The Times Group. The Times Group has over 11,000 employees and revenue exceeding $1.5 billion.
History
On 3 November 1838 the Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce was first published, a predecessor of what would become The Times of India. While starting as a biweekly paper, it was converted to a daily in 1850 and in 1859 the paper was merged with two other papers into the Bombay Times and Standard under editor Robert Knight. Two years later, in 1861, the paper got a more national scope with the title The Times of India. Subsequently the paper saw its ownership change several times until 1892 when an English journalist named Thomas Jewell Bennett along with Frank Morris Coleman acquired the newspaper through their new joint stock company, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd.. At the time, some 800 people were employed by the paper. The company, by that time consolidated in the Times of India Group, was taken over from its British owners in 1946 by industrialist Ramkrishna Dalmia. Ramkrishna Dalmia was a pioneer industrialist and founder of the Dalmia-Jain group or Dalmia Group and The Times Group. The name is variously written as Ram Krishan Dalmia and Ram Kishan Dalmia.In 1947, Dalmia engineered the acquisition of the media giant Bennett, Coleman by transferring monies from a bank and an insurance company of which he was the Chairman. In 1955, this came to the attention of the socialist parliamentarian Feroze Gandhi who was part of the ruling Congress party headed by his estranged father-in-law Jawaharlal Nehru. In December 1955, he raised the matter in Parliament, documenting extensively the various fund transfers and intermediaries through which the acquisition had been financed. The case was investigated by the Vivian BoseCommission of Inquiry. In the court case that followed, where he was represented by the leading British attorney Sir Dingle Mackintosh Foot, he was sentenced to two years in Tihar Jail. But for most of the jail term he managed to spend in hospital. Upon his release his son-in-law Sahu Shanti Prasad Jain to whom he had entrusted running of Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. rebuffed his efforts to resume command of the company. During his time in prison the company was run by his son-in-law Sahu Shanti Prasad Jain. Jain would buy the company a few years later and the company would be primarily run by his family in the years after. The company expanded its presence in the Indian media sphere by founding different papers and local editions of The Times of India.
Television channels
Times Business Solutions Limited
Times Business Solutions - A division of Times Internet Limited is a limited company, wholly owned by Bennett Coleman Company Limited. TBS develops web sites within areas such as recruitment, real estate and matrimonials. TBS started as a division of BCCL in 2004 with the mission to create an exchange for job seekers and employers on the internet. With the growth of internet attaining rapid speed and being a highly profitable venture, Times Business Solutions - A division of Times Internet Limited was born as the "Internet Initiatives" of BCCL. Times Group, others put $20 million into Square Yards in Sep 2019
