NDTV, India’s oldest English-language broadcaster still in existence, said it signed a deal with content promoter Taboola that can generate as much as Rs 750 cr or $100 mn for the company over the next ten years, provided NDTV is able to maintain its traffic growth.
Taboola is famous for its paid recommendation engine that puts up ‘promoted content’ ads under news articles of major publishers.
The company gets money from advertisers who generate traffic from the recommendation box, and shares part of it with publishers like NDTV.
As part of the deal, NDTV will also test embedding e-commerce links via Taboola’s Skimlinks platform.
Taboola has been buying space on NDTV’s websites for the past seven years. In 2018, NDTV signed a five-year deal with Taboola for over 300 crores.
“Both companies have accrued big benefits from that partnership; they synergized their respective strengths for sustainable growth and have therefore decided on a larger, 10-year arrangement…
“The decade-long deal is based on mutually-determined projections, including growth in traffic, and cumulatively can enable revenue of Rs. 750 crores or 100 million dollars for NDTV Convergence contingent upon it meeting the targets assigned for different stages of the 10-year period,” said the Indian company.
It also warned investors that it will have to spend more to make sure that it meets the targets.
“To achieve maximum revenue, scaling up of operations and considerable marketing will be key to realizing targets, and this could increase the expenses for NDTV Convergence, which remains one of India’s only profitable online news companies.”
The company said its main website, ndtv.com, has nearly 200 million unique visitors per month.
“This deal also gives NDTV Convergence immediate access to Taboola’s full portfolio of offerings for personalized content recommendations, editorial planning, monetization and growth strategies.
“For users of NDTV Convergence’s digital offerings, this means accessing better, customized content through recommendations for what to read, watch and explore. This includes leveraging the Taboola Feed, which points users to content especially relevant to their choices and allows for meaningful revenue and increased audience engagement,” it added.