Shekhar Gupta storms into India Today powerlist

Thirteen out of India Today magazine’s 2013 ranking of the 50 most powerful people in India have interests in the media, but only two of them (former Indian Express editor Arun Shourie, Times Now editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami, Indian Express editor-in-chief Shekhar Gupta) are pure-play journalists.

The chairman of the press council of India, Justice Markandey Katju, is a new entry at No. 50, just as Gupta is at No. 45, Hindustan Times bosswoman Shobhana Bhartia at No. 39 and Star India CEO Uday Shankar at No. 26.

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No. 1: Mukesh Ambani, chairman, Reliance Industries and “virtual owner” of TV18 (up from No. 3 in 2012)

No. 4: Kumaramangalam Birla, chairman Aditya Birla group, and 27.5% stake holder in Living Media (up from No. 5): “sings Hindi film songs, although only in close family circles”

No. 7: Samir Jain and Vineet Jain, The Times of India, down from No.6 last year

No. 26: Uday Shankar, CEO, Star India (new entry)

No. 28: Kalanidhi Maran, chairman and MD of Sun Group (up from 49 last year)

No. 31: Mahendra Mohan Gupta and Sanjay Gupta, chairman and CEO, Dainik Jagran (No. 31 last year)

No. 35: Subhash Chandra, chairman, Zee television and DNA (No. 35 last year)

No. 39: Shobhana Bhartia, chairman and editorial director, HT Media (new entry): Her home in Friends Colony (West) in Delhi was acquired from the erstwhile royal family of Jind.

No. 36: Raghav Bahl, MD, Network 18 (up from No. 44)

No. 38: Arun Shourie (new entry): His dictum: “We must learn to be satisfied with enough and enough is what we have at the moment.”

No. 41: Arnab Goswami (up from 46): “Plays loud music on his iPod before every show to unwind.”

No. 45: Shekhar Gupta (new entry)

No. 50: Justice Markandey Katju, chairman, press council of India (new entry): The Ph.D. in Sanskrit asked Lucknow lawyer S.K. Kalia who entred his court, ‘Ab tera kya hoga Kalia‘?

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Photograph: courtesy Indian Express

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Also read: 12 media barons worth 2,962, 530,000,000

10 media barons in India Today 2010 power list

26% of India’s most powerful are media barons

An A-list most A-listers don’t want to be a part of

Blogger breaks into Businessweek most powerful list

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The Indian Express power list

2012: N. Ram, Arnab Goswami crash out of power list

2011: Arnab Goswami edges out Barkha Dutt

2010: Arun Shourie more powerful than media pros

2009: 11 habits of highly successful media people

Arnab Goswami finally—finally!—joins Twitter

Times Now editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami has done the unthinkable.

After resisting the charms of social media for seven years, the social anthropologist from Oxford has joined his colleagues, competitors and compatriots in Twitterosophere, reports The UnReal Times. 

Above is a screenshot of his first tweet; below is his second.

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Read the full story: Arnab Goswami on Twitter

Follow Arnab Goswami on Twitter: @arnabgoswami

Also read: What is sans serif?

‘Arnab Goswami is corrective to babalog media’

Bangalore, the home of City Tab, India’s original weekly tabloid, now has a new weekly: Talk.

Edited by former Indian Express and Yahoo! staffer S.R. Ramakrishna, Talk also features a weekly satire page called Ayyotoons, illustrated by Satish Acharya.

The latest issue features Times Now* editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami.

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At the turn of 2012, the columnist Swapan Dasgupta nominated Goswami as his man of the year gone by:

“Arnab’s foremost contribution to the public discourse (at least the English language discourse which still sets the tone for others) is his unending search for what “the nation” wants to know.

“The definition of his imagined community is important. Hitherto, the media was reasonably modest in its inquisitiveness. Its rationale for demanding answers was invariably couched in terms of either ‘viewer interest’ or, at best, ‘the public interest’.

“In projection the ‘nation’ as the inquisitor — and I notice that even in rival channels ‘nation’ is fast becoming a substitute to the more passive use of the ‘country’ — Arnab has succeeded in doing something quite remarkable: he has successfully made ‘nationalism’ the core attribute for assessing public life.   This is a remarkable feat….

“In an environment where others were highlighting the values of cosmopolitanism, internationalism, liberalisation and oozing concern for the human rights of every extremist who sought the vivisection of India, Arnab re-popularised the validity of proud nationalism.

“For helping India recover this eroding inheritance, ‘the nation’ must be thankful to him. He has been the best corrective to the babalog media.”

* Disclosures apply

External reading: Arnab wins Bharat as ‘nation wants to know’

Vir Sanghvi clarifies on Caravan profile of Arnab

In its new avatar, Caravan magazine doesn’t have space for letters to the editor.

But in the January 2013 issue, the contributors’ page contains a response from Vir Sanghvi, the former editor of Hindustan Times, on the profile of Times Now editor-in-chief Arnab Gowsami in the last issue of 2012.

An error seems to have crept into Rahul Bhatia‘s otherwise well-researched story about Times Now.

I am quoted as having told a Times Now employee in 2006 that the Jains had offered me a job to head their television channels. I do not know who this unnamed employee is but she or he is clearly mistaken or has misremembered our conversation.

I made no such remark.

Considering that the story quotes me in inverted commas, I wish Caravan would have mailed or phoned me to double-check the quote. That way, I could have clarified this before the story appeared, rather than right now, after publication.

For the record, I have watched Arnab‘s progress from his days at The Telegraph, through his stint at NDTV and now, as editor in chief of Times Now. Though it is ages since we last spoke or met, I have always liked him and respect his considerable achievements.

Certainly, I will never diss him to a member of his staff. I have been in this business long enough not to do something that crass.

Vir Sanghvi

How a martyr’s wife changed Arnab’s outlook

The bumper 318-page eighth anniversary issue of Impact, the media magazine from Anurag Batra‘s exchange4media group, features dozens of print, electronic, digital and radio professionals recounting their personal stories.

Among them is the 2012 television editor of the year, Arnab Goswami, editor-in-chief of Times Now*:

By ARNAB GOSWAMI

In August 2007, Sanjay Dutt was being moved from Arthur Road jail to Yerawada jail in Poona and we were following it keenly. Everybody was in the middle of this crazy chase, looking desperately for a shot, a sound byte, a picture….

In the midst of it all, I received a phone call from a viewer in Bangalore who said that he had been following my career and Times Now for a long time, but he wouldn’t do it anymore.

I was very surprised and asked him why he felt that way.

The person said he had a friend, a colonel in the Indian Army named Vasanth Venugopal, who had died fighting on the border. His body was being brought back to Bangalore but not a single news channel was bothered, so busy they were covering Sanjay Dutt.

There wasn’t even a mention of this martyr on any channel, while Dutt was being covered like there was nothing else happening in the world.

I was very upset and felt very guilty.

I told the gentleman that we would send a cameraman and get pictures of the cremation and do a story on it. That night, after we had done the story, I requested this gentleman and come and talk about his friend.

When I started my programme, and asked the producer whether the person had come, he said, ‘She is here.’

I told him I was expecting a gentleman, not a lady.

The producer replied, “Colonel Vasanth’s wife has come.”

Subhashini Vasanth had witnessed the last rites of her husband barely four hours back, yet she came to our studio.

Nothing has ever moved me as much as what she said that day.

She spoke about her family and her husband’s martyrdom, making me realise that journalism can sometimes lose its way and that we have an obligation to our viewers that goes beyond the narrow perspective of covering a movie star.

Since then, the way we cover the armed forces, internal security, issues relating to Pakistan is far more detailed than any other channel. That incident shaped the work that we do now.

* Disclosures apply

Photograph: courtesy Apoorva Salkade/ Outlook

‘Mouth ka Saudagar’ to play Rajdeep & Arnab

Emran Hashmi, the Bollywood actor who has attained the reputation of a “serial kisser” in his film career, is to play the role of an “upwardly mobile journalist with a top news channel” in the upcoming film, Rush.

HT City, the city supplement of the Hindustan Times in Delhi, quotes the movie’s director as saying Hashmi’s character is based on Rajdeep Sardesai of CNN-IBN and Arnab Goswami of Times Now.

Every channel is a winner in great poll race

For politicians, an election is a loaded game: there is one winner and the rest are losers. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Unless, of course, it is a hung parliament or assembly.

Not so for those in the business of capturing their victories and defeats.

All three of India’s leading English news channels are claiming that they were the channel of choice on results day, March 6, when the verdict of the elections to the five State assemblies, including Uttar Pradesh, came out.

# Times Now* newspaper advertisement: “Times Now reaffirms its undisputed leadership on election counting day.” Citing TAM ratings, it claims fullday viewership of 39% (versus 23% for CNN-IBN and 22% for NDTV), and primetime (7pm to 11 pm) viewership of 48% (versus 18% for CNN-IBN and 20% for NDTV).

# CNN-IBN newspaper advertisement: “Elections = CNN-IBN & IBN7. India’s best team = India’s best results. CNN-IBN, IBN7 and The Week post-poll conducted by CSDS gets the projections right again.” On air, CNN-IBN says it was the most watched of the channels.

# NDTV 24×7 newspaper advertisment: “Who won the election without any shouting and screaming? NDTV24x7 had more viewers than all other news channels COMBINED.” Using an opinion poll by GfK-Mode in 11 cities (sample size 5,000), NDTV claims it had 51% viewership compared with CNN-IBN’s 19%, Times Now’s 15% and Headlines Today’s 10%.

* Disclosures apply

Also read: Times Now. Times Now. Times Now.

Which is why Times Now didn’t do an exit poll

N. Ram, Arnab Goswami crash out of power list

Despite stitching up one of the biggest media deals in recent times, TV18′s Raghav Bahl is among four  media persons who have crashed out of the Indian Express list of the 100 most powerful people in the year of the lord 2012.

N. Ram, the former editor-in-chief of The Hindu (No. 73 in last year’s list) finds himself in the doghouse having remitted office recently, as does Times Now editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami (No. 90), who had edged out NDTV’s Barkha Dutt in the  2011 ranking. Also out is Sun TV boss Kalanidhi Maran (No. 38).

One media figure makes a lateral entry: the new press council chairman, Justice Markandey Katju.

The number of media people in the Express list of India’s most powerful continues to drop. There are seven media people in the 2012 power list, as opposed to 11 in 2009, 12 in 2010, and 10 in 2011.

As in the past, the list contains a bit of trivia.

#No. 67, Samir Jain and Vineet Jain, The Times of India group: “The elder brother is an ardent follower of a Bombay-based guruji, whom he calls ‘bhagwaan’.”

# No. 69, Sanjay Gupta and Mahendra Mohan Gupta, Dainik Jagran: “Sanjay loves watching Hollywood films while M.M. Gupta likes Hindi film songs of the sixties.”

# No. 71, Shobhana Bhartia, Hindustan Times: “She is a fitness freak.”

# No. 72, Uday Shankar, Star India: “He enjoys cooking Indian food. He loves experimenting so much that he never repeats a dish.”

# No. 73, Arun Shourie: “The prolific writer’s next book is an ‘expanded’ edition of Falling over backwards, which he had written in 2006, arguing against the reservation policy and judicial populism.”

# No. 80, Aveek Sarkar, Ananda Bazaar Patrika group: “He is passionate about art and has a large collection of works from the Bengal school of art and the Raj era.”

# No. 83, Justice Markandey Katju, press council chairman: “It’s not just Urdu poet Ghalib whom Katju likes, he is equally fond of Sanskrit poet Kalidas.”

As in previous years, Indian Express does not reveal how the list was arrived at or who the jury members were, although it asks readers to write to the jury (ie100@expressindia.com) “if you disagree with our jury”.

The tabloid supplement carrying the 2012 list has been “presented” by Central Park, a developer, and Campus shoes.  The lead sponsor like last year is IRB infrastructure developers.

Among the advertisers is Nobel Hygiene which makes adult diapers.

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2011 list: Arnab Goswami edges out Barkha Dutt

2010 list: Arun Shourie more powerful than media pros

2009 list: 11 habits of highly successful media people

Three reasons Arnab Goswami should be PM

Columnist G. Sampath on Times Now‘s editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami in DNA:

# “Arnab Goswami is the only person in the country to whom every Indian is answerable.

# “Our politicians, at any rate, hold him in higher regard than Parliament. No matter how provocative the questions posed to them, they won’t dream of staging a walk-out from Arnab’s chambers like they do every 13 minutes in the Lok Sabha.”

# “Arnab has mastered the art of being outraged. He is the only person I know who can be more outraged than outrage itself. And that is a talent that our current crop of politicians sorely lack. Nothing fazes them.”

The only contender on the horizon is Rajnikanth.

“While Rajini might vaporise Arnab with his laughter, Arnab might pre-empt it by unleashing on Rajini his finger-wagging verbiage of infinite outrage. In which case, Rajini, whose compassionate heart melts at even the tiniest, teeny weenie injustice, would collapse instantly into a heap of sand, and Arnab would emerge the winner. But it would be a close call.”

Read the full article: Why not make Arnab PM

Illustration: courtesy DNA

The nation wants to know: TOI or Times Now?

As a story, newspapers verus television is as old as the bush telegraph. But the story gets more interesting when a group owns both print and electronic properties, as The Times group does.

Can it afford to decry one or the other? On the strength of this advertisement, evidently it can.

“While it may stir your emotions, does it [TV] really leave you better informed about the subject being discussed? Probably not.”

Try telling that to Mr Goswami.

Image: courtesy Karthik Srinivasan

Link via Vishwatma Bhat