The paid-news inquiry named the methods. Reliance and Adani now own the networks.
In 2010 the Press Council described cash, equity, and advertising as ways to buy coverage, then published a report without the names. Those same levers sit inside the companies that now hold Network18 and NDTV.
In 2010 a Press Council of India subcommittee wrote that paid news was pervasive, structured, and organized. Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and K. Sreenivas Reddy dated their draft April 1. It looked at cash-for-coverage in the 2009 national election and named papers and channels said to have run favorable coverage for payment. The full council did not publish that version. On July 30, 2010 it adopted a shorter report and left the names out. The public definition was any news or analysis appearing for a price in cash or kind.
The subcommittee's list of methods was concrete. Cash for a story. Equity handed to a media company. Advertising bought so that coverage stayed positive, or so that a critical story did not run. A reader could not see the price. The council's public report, with the names removed, made the sellers harder to see as well.
The companies that now hold India's largest television and digital news networks are industrial groups, and the price no longer has to arrive as a separate check. Mukesh Ambani's Reliance group holds Network18, including CNN-News18, CNBC-TV18, and the digital properties around them. Reliance's other businesses include refining and petrochemicals, the Jio telecom network, and retail. Gautam Adani's group took control of NDTV in 2022, through a promoter holding company and a later purchase of most of the founders' remaining stake. Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy left the board. Adani's other businesses include ports, airports, power, and coal.
A story about a telecom license, a refinery, a port concession, or a power contract is a story about the owner's balance sheet. The 2010 inquiry treated equity given to a publisher as one way to buy friendly coverage. Here the industrial group already owns the publisher. The inquiry treated advertising as another way. Government advertising, and the advertising of firms that do business with the owner, can do that work without a labeled payment for a single article. Reporters and researchers have described pieces that touch those interests, or that cut against the government of the day, becoming harder to get into the paper.
The 2010 report did not name Reliance or Adani. The ownership came later. What lines up is the method. Favorable coverage and buried criticism used to be purchased from outside the newsroom. They can now be a consequence of who owns it, because the owner has more money at stake in ports, fuel, and phones than in the news itself.