Bloomberg Tv, Utv Announces Partnership; Biz Channel UTVi To Become Bloomberg-UTV

 Global news and information giant Bloomberg and Indian business news channel UTVi, part of diversified media firm UTV Software Communications, this morning signed a content and co-branding agreement, under which, UTVi will be rebranded as Bloomberg-UTV. The channel’s website, Utvi.com, will become Bloombergutv.com. The deal comes after months of negotiations, which we first reported in May. Bloomberg was also in talks with NDTV Profit. We had said that a financial deal would be part of it and multiple sources familiar with the talks said a financial deal was probably on the way and would likely be announced at a later stage after obtaining regulatory approvals. A UTV statement said nothing about a financial transaction and UTVi chairman Ronnie Screwvala was unavailable for comment. “We are thrilled about this collaboration and believe the audience in India will strongly benefit from the news, analysis and the world’s most powerful business analytics tools that Bloomberg brings to bear,” Screwvala said in a statement.