Daybreak - If news doesn't pay enough, why do billionaires keep buying?

Episode Date: February 11, 2026

On February 10, 2026, reports said nearly 100 NDTV employees were put on performance improvement plans, often seen as a prelude to layoffs. This comes after the Adani Group acquired NDTV in December 2022 for about ₹600 crore, followed by several high profile exits. A similar moment unfolded at Jeff Bezos-owned The Washington Post last week where hundreds were laid off and multiple sections and bureaus shut. Both Adani and Bezos run highly profitable core businesses. News is not one of them. So why invest heavily in an industry known for low margins? Host Snigdha Sharma explores.If you have any thoughts on this episode write to us at [e-mail] with Daybreak in the subject line. You can also leave us a comment on our website or the YouTube channel here.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcasts, you've probably heard me, my interruptions, my analogies, and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too. It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Raman Ganeshan, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor, have been working on an ambitious new podcast. It's called Intermission.

We want to tell the secret sauce stories of India's greatest companies. Stories of how they were born, how they fought to survive, how they build their organizations and culture, how they manage to innovate and thrive over decades, and most importantly, how they're poised today. To do that, Sita and I have been reading books, poring over reports, going through financial statements, digging up archives, and talking to dozens of people. And if that wasn't enough, we also decided to throw in video into the mix. Yes, you heard that right. Intermission has also had to find its footing in the world of multi-camera shoots in professional studios, laborious editing, and extensive post-production.

Sita and I are still reeling from the intensity of our first studio recording. Intermission launches on March 23rd. To get an alert as soon as we release our first episode, please follow intermission on Spotify and Apple Podcasts or subscribe to the Ken's YouTube channel. You can find all of the links at the ken.com slash I am. With that, back to your episode. On Tuesday, a credible news outlet reported that nearly 100 employees at NDTV have been placed on performance improvement plans,

which is basically corporate speak for, you're probably going to get fired soon. Reporters, producers, camera crew and even department heads were not spared. Now, as you will remember, NDTV was acquired by the Adani Group in December 2020 for approximately 600 cro rupees. In fact, I had covered the details of this deal in the very first episode of daybreak back then. Ever since, we've seen wave after wave of exits from the TV news channel. Ravish Kumar left after 26 years with the channel, Srinivasin Jain, Nadi Razdan, and later Sarah Jacob.

All gone. If you've been following the news, then you're probably thinking, wait, something like this was also happening somewhere else recently. It is Washington Post, the same paper that broke the Watergate scandal, the one with democracy dies in darkness on its very masthead. In what was described as a bloodbath, the newspaper laid off 100. hundreds of employees last Wednesday, approximately one-third of the entire workforce. The whole sports section, the books desk, all have been closed. Foreign bureaus in Cairo in Sydney, Delhi, all have been shut down. And here's the thing.

The post is owned by Jeff Bezos, who's one of the richest men in the world worth nearly $250 billion. Now, interestingly, the layoffs came not long after the Amazon financed Melania Trump document, was released. Amazon invested $75 million in producing and marketing it only to see it flop. So while both the cases, NDTV and Washington Post may be different in many ways, the similarities at the core of both become hard to ignore. Think of the fundamentals. Gotham Adani built his empire on ports, power and infrastructure. When government contracts are aligned, these are businesses with high operating margins.

Bezos runs Amazon, which operates on 11% margins overall, but has cloud computing divisions which deliver far higher returns in the range of 30 to 40%. So both conglomerates understand how to extract profit. Why then would they pour in money into an industry that structurally delivers lower returns? Bezos paid $250 million for the post in 2013 when it was already losing money. The Adani group paid more than 600 rupees for NDTV shares at a 17% premium over the open offer price. The whole deal actually played out quite strangely. Listen to my episode titled The Curious Case of Adani's Open Offer to NDTV's public shareholders.

More recently, end of last month, in fact, Adani also fully took over Indo-Asian News Service, or INS, an Indian news agency. So here is what I want to dig into today. If news was never a huge profit-making business, why do billionaires keep buying it? Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken. I'm your host Nick Dha Sharma and I don't chase the news cycle. Instead, every day of the week, my colleague Rachel Vargheese and I will come to you with one business story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Thursday, the 12th of February.

Let's first establish baseline economics. because this whole struggling media narrative deserves to be analyzed. Pew Research Center data says that the U.S. newspaper industries operating margins averaged at around 11% in 2015. Not spectacular, but respectable. But during the golden era of the 1990s, some papers hit as much as 20 to 25% margins. Now, let us compare this to tech. Google operates at 25 to 30%, Apple at 30% and meta at around 35%.

See, newspapers were always a steady and respectable business. But never a great business if your benchmark is Silicon Valley type of returns. And here's the thing. Everybody knew this. When Bezos bought the Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million, the paper had been losing money for years. print circulation was declining, ad revenue was collapsing and the entire industry was in freefall as big tech like Facebook and Google swallowed up the advertising pipe.

Do you think Adani bought NDTV to diversify into media profits? Like I told you, his empire is built on ports, power and infrastructure. Those are 20, 30, 40% margin businesses when the contracts are right. Why would it pivot to journalism which structurally cannot deliver those kind of returns. And add to this narratives like economic realities, adapting to the digital age, AI is disrupting the business model, search traffic is down. This is what we've been hearing day in and out about the business of news. And look, it's not entirely false. The media industry is struggling. Digital advertising is less lucrative than print used to be. AI is changing consumption

patterns. But here's what does not add up. Let me present to you a critical data point. You see, newspapers can still be profitable. The New York Times, owned by the Salzberger family, which is not a billionaire side project, reported over $2.5 billion in revenue for 2024. It was up by 6.6% year over year. Operating profit was at 11% margin. Invitees digital subscriptions are growing. has been adding subscribers and has been increasing revenue, while the Washington Post was hemorrhaging both. So what did the New York Times do? Investment. The time spent on product, journalism and subscriber experience. It treated media as its core business and not as a political hedge. Let me take another example. Bloomberg, founded by Michael Bloomberg, who made his

fortune in media is still expanding. It has over 700,000 terminal subscribers globally. So you see, the business model works if you're committed to the business. Let me give you another slightly different example. The Philadelphia Inquire, in 2016, it was donated to a non-profit foundation ending its billionaire ownership. After this, it saw its first year-over-year revenue growth in decades. It also return to profitability, all while editorial independence stayed protected. Meanwhile, Amazon can spend eight figures on pro-establishment content, but the post, quote-unquote, can't afford reporters. Here at home, the Adani Group paid over 600 crore rupees for majority control of NDTV, which was a channel that reported $45 million in revenue in 2021,

with a market cap of a little over $300 million. For context, Adani Enterprises market cap exceeds $30 billion. NDTV is barely 1% of that value. So here's the point that I'm trying to make. If this was about building a media business, you would see these conglomerates investing in expansion, talent retention, audience growth. Instead, we are seeing contraction.

The business case does not exist because there is no business case. So why did Bezos buy washing business? Post. He literally said it himself and I'm quoting, if this were a financially upside down salty snack food company, the answer would be no. Translation, this is not about return of investment. Stay tuned for more on this. Let me quote Ravish Kumar directly. After resigning from NDTV, he said, the Roy's, who were the previous owners of NDTV, never asked me what topic to debate or what line to take. But how can a channel bought by a corporation whose success is linked to government contracts now criticize the government? That is what happens when ownership

changes the incentives. The newsroom does not need instructions when the cost of the friction is so obvious. The Adani Group's business model depends on government infrastructure contracts. In an interview with the Financial Times, Gotham Adani himself described acquiring entity as a responsibility rather than a business opportunity. Responsibility to whom? The question answers itself. He also suggested that independent media should be willing to praise the government when it is doing the right thing, not just criticize it.

Bezos faces similar dynamics. Amazon needs favorable antitrust rulings, cloud computing contracts, including AWS deals with the Pentagon worth billions of dollars, and regulatory leniency on labor issues. Also, let's not forget Blue Origin, its space tech arm which competes for NASA contracts and Defense Department launches. So, when you're that exposed to the government's decisions,

media ownership becomes insurance, the strategic type of insurance. Owning a media company can make someone look respectable, help them look like they're serving the public, and give them access to powerful and influential circles. Look at the timeline, for example. In the 2024 U.S. election, Washington Post decided to withhold the planned endorsement of Democrat candidate Kamala Harris, ending the paper's long tradition of presidential endorsements altogether. Around 250,000 or 10% of its digital subscribers canceled in protest.

That is roughly $25 million worth of annual revenue lost for the paper. But the move, in hindsight, was a bet. Within months, Trump was inaugurated as the president and Amazon's antitrust risks decreased. Blue Origin maintained its government contract pipeline and ultimately, the $25 million subscriber loss, if you think about it, is like a rounding error for someone who is worth more than $200 billion. Antiginizing the powers that be carries a far greater cost. In India, too, the pattern is similar. The Adani Group needs poor development licenses, power purchase,

agreements, forestland clearances, airport concessions, and so much more. Similarly, Mukeshambani's Network 18 also operates with a clear alignment to his broader business interests. It is all about who controls the narrative. Because when your business interests conflict with public interest, you can decide which story gets prominence and which one gets shoved under the rug. Like former Washington Post fact checker, Glenn Kessler, put it quite straightforwardly, Bezos is not trying to save the post.

He is trying to survive Trump. That is all for today, dear listeners. If you have any thoughts on this episode, please do write to me at podcasts at the ken.com with Daybreak in the subject line. Thank you for tuning in and catch you again tomorrow. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken, India's first subscriber-focused business news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of a subscriber-only offerings

and a full subscription offers daily, long-form feature stories, newsletters and a whole bunch of premium podcasts. To subscribe, head to the ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on the top of the website. Today's episode was hosted and produced by my colleague Snitha Sharma and edited by Rajiv Sien.