Early history and founding

In January 2010, Viacom18 went international with the launch of Colors in United States. The channel is called Aapka Colors. In July 2010, it got into 50/50 distribution joint venture with Sun Network to form Sun 18.^[4]

In December 2011, Viacom18 launched Nickelodeon Sonic, targeting young adults.^[5]

In January 2014, TV18 acquired the non-Telugu language TV assets of ETV Network for ₹2,053 crore, with a permission to use ETV brand name.^[6]

In March 2015, Viacom18 decided to rebrand all five non-Telugu language ETV regional general entertainment channels. ETV Marathi, ETV Gujarati, ETV Kannada, ETV Bangla, and ETV Odia were rebranded into Colors Marathi, Colors Gujarati, Colors Kannada, Colors Bangla, and Colors Odia respectively.^[7]

The company also owns Viacom18 Studios. On 31 January 2018, TV18 announced its acquisition of Viacom's majority in the joint venture, taking operational control and leaving Viacom with minority interest.^[8] On 1 October 2019, Viacom18 launched Colors HD in Malaysia on Astro Malaysia; every serial will be served with Malay and English subtitles.

More recently, the company had signed a deal with the National Basketball Association in order to deliver live NBA games to all of their own networks.^[9]

Attempted mergers with Sony and Zee, partnership with Bodhi Tree Systems

In June 2020, Sony's Indian unit Sony Pictures Networks India was in talks with Viacom18 about a merger, with the talks getting advanced much later. If the merger was successful, Sony would be 74% shareholder in the merged company.^[10] However, in October 2020, Reliance Industries,^[11] the majority share holder in Viacom18, called off the merger.^[12][13]

In June 2021,^[14] reports stated Viacom18 and Zee Entertainment Enterprises were reportedly in talks about a merger.^[15] However, Zee denied any talks about a potential merger with Viacom18,^[16] later entering talks with Sony Pictures Networks India, which was also in talks about a merger with Viacom18 earlier.^[17]

In January 2022, there were reports that Lupa India, an investment company set up by Uday Shankar and James Murdoch, were in the final stages of picking up a 39% stake in Viacom18.^[18] thereby turning Paramount Global into a minority shareholder with a 10% share in the company.^[19] In April 2022, Reliance announced that Bodhi Tree Systems, a company founded by Shankar and Murdoch with backing from the Qatar Investment Authority,^[20] would make a US$1.8 billion investment in Viacom18 to "jointly build India’s leading entertainment platform and pioneer the Indian media landscape's transformation to a ‘streaming-first’ approach." As part of the venture, JioCinema—a streaming service owned by Reliance's mobile operator Jio—would be brought under Viacom18. Paramount would remain a stakeholder and content partner. The deal was approved by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) in September 2022.^[21][22] The sale was completed on 17 April 2023, with Bodhi Tree acquiring a 13.08% stake in the venture, and diluting Paramount Global's stake to 13.01%.^[23]

On-air channels

Following are the distribution channels available from TV18:^[24]