MUMBAI: News broadcaster New Delhi Television Ltd (NDTV) is setting up a new subsidiary where it will park its convergence and technology businesses.

The company has also decided to enter into e-commerce business through its subsidiary, NDTV Worldwide.

In the restructured form, NDTV Ltd will, thus, have four subsidiaries, each looking after a separate business. While NDTV News will take care of the news broadcasting business, NDTV Worldwide will be responsible for the media consultancy and e-commerce part. NDTV Network will constitute the lifestyle business and the fourth subsidiary will combine Convergence and NDTV Labs, which will manage the content delivery aspect of NDTV’s business.

    
As part of an exercise to simplify the structure, NDTV Labs will get merged into NDTV Convergence. "This was the most natural step to take. Convergence is a growing business," said NDTV Group vice-chairperson KVL Narayan Rao said.

NDTV Convergence was set up to exploit the synergies between television, Internet and mobile and it also owns the website ndtv.com. NDTV Labs focuses on development of broadcast graphics systems.

Asked if NDTV is merging the step-down subsidiaries for raising capital or bringing in an investor, Rao said, “This is not why it is being done. Convergence is self-funded.”

For the year ended 31 March 2012, NDTV Convergence recorded a fivefold jump in net profit. Revenue rose by 60 per cent over the last fiscal year.

NDTV WorldWide also turned profitable. Net profit doubled in the fiscal ended 31 March 2012, while revenue tripled over the year-ago period. NDTV, however, does not disclose the exact financials of these two outfits.