Media group Hindustan Times has hived off its digital content production business into a separate company, called HT Digital Information Limited. This includes the digital content production businesses of its publications Hindustan Times (English), Hindustan (Hindi) and Mint (English; Business daily). The idea, company executives said on its earnings conference call, "The content business of HT.com, Livehindustan and LiveMint, which was existing in the various parts of our print offering, have been taken out, so that the best practices can be shared and put into a separate company. The cost structure, everything will remain the same for all those three publications." It turns out that, combined, the digital content production businesses of Hindustan Times, made around Rs 35 crores in revenue, almost all of it from Hindustantimes.com and Livemint.com, with LiveHindustan contributing negligible money. HT Media declined to share the EBITDA of these digital businesses on the call, and said that it would do so at a later date. This digital content business has been valued at Rs 175 crores. How the new structure works HT Media and HMVL (Hindustan Media Ventures Ltd) will buy content from HT Digital Information, and sell advertising for them: "The revenue, in totality, of that entity is around Rs 35 crore. Revenue is going to get shared between the new company and here (HT Media Ltd). What's going to happen is, the production of digital content is what is moving that company. HT, Mint (and Hindustan) will end up purchasing content from them. Advertising will also be sold and revenue will be…
