ScoopWhoop

Last updated

ScoopWhoop Media
Logo of Scoopwhoop.png
Type of business Privately held company
Type of site
News & Entertainment
Available inEnglish, Hindi
Founded2013;11 years ago (2013)
Headquarters
New Delhi
,
India
Created bySattvik Mishra
Rishi Pratim Mukherjee
Sriparna Tikekar
Debarshi Banerjee
Saransh Singh
Suparn Pandey
Key peopleSattvik Mishra(CEO)
Sriparna Tikekar(CCO)
Shivam Singh
URL www.scoopwhoop.com
Advertising Native
RegistrationOptional
Current statusActive

ScoopWhoop Media is an Indian digital media company based in New Delhi. It operates various online content verticals and serves as a news organisation featuring web series, documentaries and current affairs reporting with a focus on video production and primarily catering to adolescents and young adults. It also features other infotainment and entertainment content. [1] [2]

Contents

The company was co-founded by Sattvik Mishra, Rishi Pratim Mukherjee, Sriparna Tikekar, Saransh Singh, Suparn Pandey and Debarshi Banerjee in 2013. [3] Initially started as an Indian viral content generating and sharing website and described as a BuzzFeed clone, it has since expanded into a news media company competing with the likes of The Times Group, Dainik Jagran and NDTV on the digital platform. [2] [4]

History

ScoopWhoop began as an online blog for listicles launched in August 2013 inspired from BuzzFeed. [4] The first post on the blog was a listicle named: "These pictures from a Hindu lesbian wedding would make you all go aww." The idea was conceived by Sattvik Mishra, Sriparna Tikekar and Rishi Pratim Mukherjee. The listicle had generated over half a million views within a day which provided the impetus for the expansion of the blog into a regular project. Saransh Singh and Suparn Pandey were brought into the project around this time. [3]

The five co-founders were all alumni of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication of whom all except Sriparna Tikekar were employees of the designing and online marketing firm Dentsu Webchutney while she herself was an employee of the advertising firm McCann Erickson. The co-founders remained as employees of their respective firms while working on expanding ScoopWhoop as a side project. [3] [4] By January 2014, the WordPress hosted blog had been converted into a website and a viral content producing entertainment company. [5] [3] Debarshi Banerjee who is also credited as a co-founder was brought in for his technological expertise and became the Chief Technology Officer of the company. [3] [4]

In early 2014, the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed, Ben Smith came into contact with the co-founders and offered them to work in partnership with BuzzFeed however the offer wasn't followed up by either party. Subsequently, Times Internet also offered to acquire ScoopWhoop but the offer was rejected by the co-founders of ScoopWhoop. Siddharth Rao, the CEO of Dentsu Webchutney eventually discovered the project and became one of the first investors along with the journalist Harsh Chawla, the first CEO of Network18 and the founder of Firstpost who was also an early investor of Dentsu Webchutney. [3]

In November 2014, Bharti Softbank – the joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and SoftBank Group invested ₹ 10 crore (US$1.2 million) in the company and acquired 36.5% of its shareholding. The valuation of the company was estimated to be approximately ₹ 40 crore (US$4.8 million) at the time. [2] [3] According to The Caravan , the investment turned the co-founders of the company into overnight millionaires. [3]

In February 2015, ScoopWhoop began its venture into news media and hired the journalist Anuja Jairan as the editor-in-chief who had previously been an employee of Reuters and Hindustan Times . [3] Subsequently, in November 2015, the company again raised investments worth US$4 million from the venture capital firm Kalaari Capital to expand its editorial and video division. [6] Since then it has entered into partnerships with Newslaundry and TikTok for the production of documentaries and distribution of their content respectively. [7] [8]

Content

ScoopWhoop produces digital content across a variety of topics and interests; it includes current affairs reporting, interviews, web series, documentaries, etc. with a focus on producing video content as well as listicles, quizzes, memes and other entertainment and lifestyle content. [9] [1] [10] The company owns and operates five digital properties for the publication of its content namely; ScoopWhoop.com, ScoopWhoop Hindi, Vagabomb, ScoopWhoop Unscripted and OkTested. [11] In a 2015 article of Quartz India, ScoopWhoop was described as an outlet that was trying to become the Indian version of BuzzFeed and Vox Media with a slice of Vice Media. [1]

While initially the company had started as a producer of listicles and other viral content; according to the Columbia Journalism Review in late 2016, ScoopWhoop "had since moved into the broader terrain of news." It was identified as one of several independent and recently founded internet-based media platforms – a group that also included Scroll.in , Newslaundry , The News Minute , The Quint and The Wire – that were attempting to challenge the dominance of India's traditional print and television news companies and their online offshoots. [5] The Business Standard described ScoopWhoop as an outlet that disseminates of news in non traditional formats around that time. [2]

ScoopWhoop.com

ScoopWhoop.com is the primary website of the company which was launched with the founding of ScoopWhoop as a digital media company. It is an English language general news and entertainment website. [4] The website also features various web series and documentaries produced by ScoopWhoop. The division is currently headed by Shivam Singh. [1] ScoopWhoop is currently collaborating with Newslaundry to produce the documentary series called Chase. The series is focused towards producing seasons on various news and current affairs and is directed by the journalist Avalok Langer. [7]

ScoopWhoop Hindi

ScoopWhoop Hindi is a website which is the Hindi language edition of ScoopWhoop for viral news and entertainment content. It was launched under the name Gazab Post in 2015 and renamed to ScoopWhoop Hindi in June 2018. [4] [12]

Vagabomb

Vagabomb is a website focused on current affairs, lifestyle and other contemporary writing catering to women. It was launched by ScoopWhoop in 2015. [4]

ScoopWhoop Unscripted

ScoopWhoop Unscripted is a YouTube channel launched by ScoopWhoop and hosted by Samdish Bhatia, with its own production team and which solely hosts unscripted current affairs and entertainment content. The channel hosts the Off the Record web series which features interviews with various notable personalities, [13] including the politician Manoj Tiwari, [14] activist Yogendra Yadav, journalist Ravish Kumar, among others. In October 2021, Bhatia announced that he was resigning from the company. [15]

Ok Tested

Ok Tested is a YouTube channel launched in 2017 by ScoopWhoop which produces lifestyle and entertainment content. [13]

Readership

In late 2016, the monthly unique readership of ScoopWhoop across all its three websites was estimated to be 30 million and their monthly views across all its internet assets including channels on social media platforms was estimated to be 225 million. [5] [16]

Controversies

In April 2017, ScoopWhoop co-founder Suparn Pandey was accused by an executive of sexual assault and misbehavior during the 2 years she worked with ScoopWhoop. [17]

In March 2018 ScoopWhoop personnel were found to be involved in negotiations for a political campaign by investigative media portal Cobrapost. [18]

In February 2022, a former ScoopWhoop employee, Samdish Bhatia accused the founder and CEO Sattvik Mishra and his wife of sexual harassment and assault, filing an FIR against him. [19] Subsequently, the court refused to grant an interim injunction sought by Mishra in connection with this case. [20]

Related Research Articles

<i>Aaj Tak</i> Hindi news channel

Aaj Tak is an Indian leading Hindi-language news channel owned by the TV Today Network, a part of the New Delhi-based media conglomerate Living Media group.

<i>Mumbai Mirror</i> Indian English-language daily newspaper

Mumbai Mirror was an English-language newspaper that was initially launched in 2005 by the Times Group as part of a ringfencing tactic to fight emerging competition in the city, mainly from Zee–Bhaskar's then joint newspaper, Daily News and Analysis. Mumbai Mirror was downsized and digitised by its owners at The Times Group on 5 December 2020 during the Covid-19 lockdown.

HT Media is an Indian mass media company based in Delhi, India. It has holdings in print, electronic and digital media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reliance Entertainment</span> Indian media and entertainment company

Reliance Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. is an Indian media and entertainment company. It is a division of Reliance Group, handling its media and entertainment business, across content and distribution platforms. The company was founded on 15 February 2005, as two entities, namely Reliance Big Entertainment and BIG Pictures. Four years later the two companies were merged into Reliance BIG Pictures in 2009, and the company's name was changed to Reliance Entertainment the following year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neeraj Pandey</span> Indian film director

Neeraj Pandey is an Indian film director, producer and screenwriter who works in Hindi cinema. Pandey made his directoral debut in A Wednesday!, which was largely praised by critics and which later became a recipient of many accolades. His second film was Special 26 (2013), which was followed by Baby (2015), both of them received critical acclaim and became commercial success. He served as a producer in Rustom (2016). Pandey returned to directing in 2016 helming the biopic movie M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story based on Indian cricketer M.S.Dhoni which fared well critically and commercially. Besides being a filmmaker, Pandey is also a writer and has written a novel named Ghalib Danger in 2013.

BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet media, news and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John S. Johnson III to focus on tracking viral content. Kenneth Lerer, co-founder and chairman of The Huffington Post, started as a co-founder and investor in BuzzFeed and is now the executive chairman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lehren</span> Indian film production company

Lehren Networks Private Limited is a network of media and entertainment websites about India's entertainment industry, primarily Bollywood and related extensions. The company is located in Mumbai, India, and was founded by Mritunjay Pandey. Lehren covers celebrity life, gossip, and other related events.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nimisha Pandey</span> Indian film director (born 1983)

Nimisha Pandey is a television and Internet content developer and curator. Born in Haryana and raised in New Delhi, she graduated from the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune in 2004, majoring in television direction. She was the youngest person to receive the National Award, for her short film “Cradle Song” in 2005. Her documentary “Nice Girls” received the Best Documentary Award at the Digital Film Festival, New Delhi in 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Friday Filmworks</span> Indian film production company

Friday Filmworks is an Indian film production house founded by film director Neeraj Pandey and producer Shital Bhatia in 2008.

Shital Bhatia is an Indian film producer and co-founder of Friday Filmworks, best known for his movies like A Wednesday! (2008), Special 26 (2013), Baby (2015), M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story (2016), Rustom (2016) and Toilet: Ek Prem Katha (2017).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abhinandan Sekhri</span> Indian journalist

Abhinandan Sekhri is the co-founder and CEO of Newslaundry, a media critique, news and current affairs website.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LADbible Group</span> British digital youth publisher

LADbible Group Limited, part of LBG Media plc, is a British digital publisher. Its headquarters is in Manchester and it has offices in London, Dublin, Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland.

<i>The Wire</i> (India) Indian news website

The Wire is an Indian nonprofit news and opinion website. It was founded in 2015 by Siddharth Varadarajan, Sidharth Bhatia, and M. K. Venu. It counts among the news outlets that are independent of the Indian government, and has been subject to several defamation suits by businessmen and politicians. In 2022, one of its reporters fabricated several news stories, and was then fired.

<i>The Quint</i> English and Hindi language Indian news website

The Quint is an English and Hindi language Indian general news and opinion website founded by Raghav Bahl and Ritu Kapur after their exit from Network18. The publication's journalists have won three Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards and two Red Ink Awards.

Scroll.in, simply referred to as Scroll, is an Indian digital news publication. Founded in 2014, it is owned by SCSN Pvt Ltd. The website is divided into English and Hindi language editions, each managed by separate editorial teams.

Shane Alexander Madej is an American Internet personality, paranormal investigator, and co-founder of digital entertainment company, Watcher Entertainment. Madej rose to prominence for co-starring in the YouTube true crime and supernatural series BuzzFeed Unsolved.

Newslaundry is an Indian media watchdog that provides media critique, reportage and satirical commentary. It was founded in 2012 by Abhinandan Sekhri, Madhu Trehan and Prashant Sareen, all of whom earlier worked in print or television journalism. It was India's first subscription-driven website when launched, and since then other platforms have followed a similar model. In contrast to news websites such as The Wire, The Quint, ThePrint or Scroll.in, Newslaundry solely relies on public subscriptions, instead of donations or advertisements, for revenue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fraternity Movement</span> Student-youth party in India

The Fraternity Movement is a student-youth party in India working for strengthening democracy, social justice and fraternity. It is a growing student organization in many regions of India especially in West Bengal, Kerala and Delhi. The Fraternity Movement is directly linked to Welfare Party of India.

<i>His Storyy</i> Indian web series

His Storyy is an Indian, Hindi-language romantic drama web series directed by Prashant Bhagia. It is an ALTBalaji and ZEE5 original, released on 25 April 2021. It stars Satyadeep Mishra, Priyamani Raj, and Mrinal Dutt in the lead roles. The series was produced by Tanveer Bookwala and Ding Entertainment, and was written by Suparn Verma and Ritu Bhatia. The series revolves around the life of Sakshi, Kunal and his lover Preet and the social issue of acceptance of homosexuals by the society and family.

Andaman is an Indian Hindi-language film directed by Smita Singh. The film is based on COVID crisis. It's starring Sanjay Mishra, Rajesh Tailang, Anand Raaj, Anamica Kadamb, Jay shanker Pandey, Rakesh Pandey, Ambrish Bobby and Saurabh Dwivedi. The film is produced by 8 Pillar Motion Pictures. It was released on 20 November 2021 on OTT platforms.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Walia, Shelly; Ghoshal, Devjyot (25 May 2015). "Now ScoopWhoop wants to become India's Buzzfeed+Vice (+Vox)". Quartz India .
  2. 1 2 3 4 Mitra, Sounak (27 December 2014). "Scoopwhoop drives more web traffic than most news sites". Business Standard .
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Sharma, Arnav Das (1 December 2017). "Diminishing Returns : ScoopWhoop's unending list of troubles" . The Caravan . Retrieved 7 December 2019.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Dutta, Saptarishi. "Five reasons why ScoopWhoop, BuzzFeed's clone in India, has been so successful". Quartz. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
  5. 1 2 3 Chaudhry, Lakshmi (Fall 2016). "Can the digital revolution save Indian journalism?". Columbia Journalism Review .
  6. ↑ "Digital media startup ScoopWhoop raises $4M from Kalaari". VCCircle. 18 November 2015.
  7. 1 2 "Updated: ScoopWhoop & Newslaundry launch a documentary series on YouTube". MediaNama. 13 May 2016.
  8. ↑ "ScoopWhoop and TikTok partner for #MyTikTokStory campaign". exchange4media. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
  9. ↑ Kohli-Khandekar, Vanita (22 February 2016). "ScoopWhoop: The new New Media". Business Standard .
  10. ↑ Upadhyay, Toyoja (27 November 2017). "How ScoopWhoop is revolutionising Indian content - ET BrandEquity". The Economic Times .
  11. ↑ "About us - ScoopWhoop". ScoopWhoop.com.
  12. ↑ "Gazabpost renamed as ScoopWhoop Hindi". afaqs!. 14 June 2018. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
  13. 1 2 Nath, Ojasvi. "In conversation with Sattvik Mishra, CEO, ScoopWhoop". Agency Reporter.
  14. ↑ "Laughter: BJP MP Manoj Tiwari's reaction when asked to justify Anurag Thakur's 'goli maaro' call". Scroll.in . 31 January 2020.
  15. ↑ "Samdish Bhatia Announces His Departure From Scoopwhoop Unscripted". Kiddaan. 30 October 2021.
  16. ↑ Gopinath, Print Tharayil Aishwarya (28 March 2018). "ScoopWhoop Caught Negotiating A Political Campaign For Money". Askmen India. Retrieved 12 April 2022.
  17. ↑ "ScoopWhoop: After TVF, ScoopWhoop founder Suparn Pandey accused of sexual harassment". The Economic Times. Retrieved 12 April 2022.
  18. ↑ Upadhyay, Harsh (27 March 2018). "ScoopWhoop caught in sting for maneuvering political campaign in exchange for money". Entrackr. Retrieved 11 April 2024.
  19. ↑ "Former ScoopWhoop Unscripted anchor accuses CEO Sattvik of sexual assault". The News Minute. 8 February 2022. Retrieved 12 April 2022.
  20. ↑ Hasan, Zeb. "Scoopwhoop, WhoopScoop, Samdish Bhatia and sexual harassment: Delhi Court refuses to gag". Bar and Bench - Indian Legal news. Retrieved 12 April 2022.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.