Losing Network18 Was Like Losing My Identity: Raghav Bahl

Its not the loss of Network18 that bothered Raghav Bahl. What troubled him was the loss of identity.

Raghav Bahl, Founder, Network18. (Photo: The Quint / Rahul Gupta)

Financially, Network18 had gone through some really tough times from 2008 to 2013 but by 2014 the company had turned around beautifully. The costs were in control, the earnings were looking really good and there was a new-found direction and vigour.

But in mid-2014 the Indian media industry was in for a shocker when news came in that Raghav Bahl was moving out of Network18. Almost overnight the top management of Network18 resigned. The journey which had started more than two decades back had come to an abrupt end. The man who founded Network18 was leaving it.

Sanjay Ray Chaudhuri and Raghav Bahl; they founded TV-18 in the early 90s (Photo: The Quint)

In the book Network 18 – The Audacious Story of a Start-up That became a Media Empire, Raghav says that it’s not the loss of Network18 that bothered him, what really troubled him was the loss of his identity.

Sanjay Ray Chaudhuri and Raghav Bahl in 2014 at the Network18 get-together (Photo: The Quint)

Network18: The Audacious Story of a Start-up That became a Media Empire has been published by Portfolio Penguin. Launched in September 2016 as a hardback, the paperback edition of the book is now out in bookstores and is available online.