In January 2008, NDTV entered into a strategic partnership with the American mass media conglomerate NBCUniversal, in an attempt to expand into the general entertainment industry in India. NBCUniversal bought 26% of the stake with a net valuation of US$600 million for the company and NDTV was expected to receive television formats used by the NBC in the United States. In an attempt to replicating the model of networks using general entertainment channels to subsidise newsgathering expenses, the network launched its first general entertainment channel NDTV Imagine on 21 January 2008. The channel's launch was also aided by Sameer Nair, the CEO of Applause Entertainment, who was in a partnership with NDTV. The operating company NDTV Imagine Ltd held a production studio NDTV Imagine Picture and entered into two partnerships to launched the music and entertainment channel NDTV Imagine Showbiz and the multilingual world movies channel NDTV Lumiere.