Now, NewsX says it is the ‘No.1 English channel’

If our TV stations cannot even put out numbers of their viewership which have a faint whiff of credibility, can they real put out news and views that news consumers can trust and believe?

NewsX, the news channel which has already seen three sets of owners since its launch, is running crawlers on its screens and advertisements on websites, claiming that it was the “most watched English channel” on May 8, when the Karnataka election results came out.

By splicing and dicing TAM data, NewsX manages to show that Times Now was the least watched of the five major English news channel.

On the other hand, Times Now too is running print advertisements of its viewership on results day. Not surprisingly, this shows that Times Now was the most watched, with NewsX not even in the frame.

Also read: The most-watched TV news show at 9 pm is…

Lots of people watch Lok Sabha TV. Surprised?

Headlines Today claims it has overtaken Times Now

Headlines Today claims it’s overtaken Times Now

In a non-stop season of scams, you would expect television watchers to switch on private TV stations to get the plain, unvarnished truth?

Well, think again.

Hindustan Times once again reports that the most-watched news shows between 8 pm and 10 pm are those on the state-owned Doordarshan News.

The paper reports that the 8 pm Hindi show on the free-to-air channel had a gross rating point of 1.22 for the week ending April 27—and the 9 pm English show Newsnight had a GRP of 1.14, ahead of Times Now, CNN-IBN, NDTV 24×7 and Headlines Today.

The HT report also quotes the information and broadcasting minister Manish Tiwari, who says:

“What these ratings indicate is the rapidly changing perception of viewers about the kind of television they like to watch and is perhaps an occasion to introspect for those who have made sensationalism their staple.”

Interesting if true.

And, if true, the numbers below, which also use TAM ratings, become interesting.

Images: courtesy Hindustan Times, Mail Today

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Also read: The most-watched TV news show at 9 pm is…

Lots of people watch Lok Sabha TV. Surprised?

Sharp, sensitive, substantive (conditions apply)

The poll straws. They are a-blowing at DD News

India’s most-watched TV news show at 9 pm is…

India’s most-watched TV news show at 9 pm is, pinch yourself, DD News!

Hindustan Times reports in its gossip columns that News Night:

“the primetime news show [on DD News] between 9 pm and 10 pm topped the TAM ratings last week with 66% market share, four times the channel which comes next.”

Interesting, if true.

And if true, the numbers below, which also use TAM ratings, become interesting.

Also read: Lots of people watch Lok Sabha TV. Surprised?

Sharp, sensitive, substantive (conditions apply)

The poll straws. They are a-blowing at DD News

Poems on anchors: this week, Sagarika Ghose

In Open magazine, Madhavankutty Pillai continues his occassional poems on news anchors. This week, his ode is directed at Sagarika Ghose, the host of Face the Nation on CNN-IBN:

Salutations, mistress of the echo

Blest with the force

Of eyes widening

until they greet the other

Of eyebrows leaping

like trampoline artists together

Reveal to us thy secret

How do you make

An answer’s last line

The next question

In the exact same words

Without a moment’s break

Goddess of ceaseless blinks

Queen-consort

Of the nightly misgivings

Anguished liberal voice

—notched up somewhat—

Guiding us from the rink

Loudest of the loud

We offer thee our ear drums

Partake it as oblation

Be generous with thy mercies

Rain down quiet on us

Shanti (blink) Shanti (blink) Shanti (blink)

Also read: Poems on anchors: this week Karan Thapar

Sagarika Ghose: 21st century media is an amoral being

Don’t ask me, ask her. Don’t ask me, ask him!

Arvind Kejriwal taunts Ambani on TV ‘sue’ threat

SHARANYA KANVILKAR writes from Bombay: Last month, India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, and its most powerful business house, Reliance Industries, shot off a seven-page legal notice to several TV news channels for airing anti-corruption activist Arvind Kejriwal‘s allegations against them in October and November last year.

Surprisingly, or perhaps not, neither Kejriwal nor his advocate-partner, Prashant Bhushan, heard from RIL’s lawyers, A.S. Dayal & Associates, on their charges of Ambani’s Swiss bank accounts and hanky-panky in the Krishna-Godavari basin by RIL, which were covered “live” by the TV channels.

Not surprisingly, or perhaps not, Kejriwal is now believed to have written to Mukesh Ambani, who is now also a media player, urging him inter alia to stop “threatening the media”. Excerpts:

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Shri Mukesh Ambaniji

Recently you have sent a legal notice to all TV channels in the county. Their fault is that they “live” telecast the press conference addressed by Prashant Bhushan and me on 31 October 2012 and 9 November 2012.

We, in our press conferences, informed the citizens of India on how you illegally pressured the government for a hike in fuel prices. Our expose was covered “live” by many TV channels.

You have sent them a legal notice for defamation suit.

I am not able to understand this.

If you have been defamed by Prashant Bhushan and me, then we are at fault. Why has the notice been sent to TV channels and not us? This clearly reveals that your motive was to exert pressure on the TV channels….

According to your company, the “live” telecast by TV channels is a case of defamation.

Just think through: is it really me or Prashant Bhushan or the TV channels who have defamed you, or have you yourself defamed your image by your acts?

I request you do not try to threaten the media of this country.

There could be a few people in the media who are biased; they can follow you.

Still, there are many journalists who work for this country. They will not be influenced by you. History is witness that such journalists come forward to save democracy.

There could be some media houses where you could have directly or indirectly invested money; they could come under your control. But the journalists working for them will not.

Yours, etc

Arvind Kejriwal

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Photograph: courtesy IBN Live

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Also read: ‘RIL has no direct stake in media companies’

Mint says SEBI looking into RIL-Network18/TV18-ETV deal

Rajya Sabha TV tears into RIL-Network18-ETV deal

Will RIL-TV18-ETV deal win SEBI, CCI approval?

The sudden rise of Mukesh Ambani, media mogul

The Indian Express, Reliance & Shekhar Gupta

Niira Radia, Mukesh Ambani, Prannoy Roy & NDTV

Why the Indian media doesn’t take on the Ambanis

Poems on News Anchors: this week, Karan Thapar

In the latest issue of Open magazine, Madhavankutty Pillai continues his series of poems on news anchors. This time, the TV anchor Karan Thapar gets his attention:

O, obstreperous weasel

Unregenerate blight

Cowering from the shock

Of my hair’s white

Prise your eyes

From my neon necktie

Prepare your deceits

Get ready to fight

 

This is how we will go

I shall ask and you shall lie

I shall tell you not to lie

I shall tell you what to tell

The how and when and why

I shall put it to you thus—

‘Let me put it to you thus’

And you shall put it to me thus

 

This index finger that I stab

Two inches from your face

Is the line I draw for you

Turn neither left nor right

Nor sputter nor stall

Allow me to make you crawl

To that overwhelming question:

What made you come here at all?

Also read: Why Karan Thapar stopped haggling with God

Did Karan Thapar stand a chance with Benazir?

Separated at birth: Karan Thapar and Keith Olbermann

Karan Thapar‘s new year resolution

Mukesh Ambani ‘sues’ TV channels on Kejriwal

SHARANYA KANVILKAR writes from Bombay: India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, and India’s most powerful business house, Reliance Industries, are believed to have served a legal notice on several TV news channels for airing anti-corruption activist Arvind Kejriwal‘s allegations against them in October and November last year.

However, it is not known if Kejriwal, a former IRS officer, and his advocate-partner, Prashant Bhushan, have heard from RIL’s lawyers on the charges made by them at the  press conferences which were covered “live” by the TV channels with accompanying commentary.

It is also unclear if  newspapers which reported Kejriwal’s allegations of Ambani’s Swiss bank accounts and hanky-panky in the Krishna-Godavari basin by RIL have attracted similar legal attention from the less-litigious of the two Ambani brothers.

In the seven-page legal notice shot off in the middle of December 2012, Mukesh Ambani and RIL have demanded “a retraction and an unconditional apology in the form approved and acceptable to our clients” within three days from the receipt of the notice.

The notices have been served by the Bombay legal firm, A.S. Dayal & Associates.

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Besides accusing the channels of “deliberately and recklessly” airing “false and defamatory statements” with an intent to “defame our clients and bring them into disrepute”, the legal notice makes the following points:

# “Your TV Channel provided a platform and instrumentality for wide dissemination of the false and defamatory statements and allegations made at the said press conference.”

# “Live telecast of these press conferences amounts to permanent publication of defamatory material relating to our client by you.”

# “Each of the two press conferences were telecast live without making any attempt to verify the truth or veracity of the statements and allegations being made during the press conference.”

# “Apart from having telecast the press conferences live, Your TV Channel  in the course of several television programmes and televised debates that followed after the said press conferences, continued to telecast, transmit and retransmit the defamatory footage of the press conferences.”

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More ominously, the Ambani-RIL notice reminds the channels:

# “Our clients have instructed us to state that Your TV Channel is bound by the Guidelines for Uplinking and Downlinking from India dated 5th December 2011, issued by the ministry of information & broadcasting, government of India.

# “Our clients have instructed us to state that since Your TV Channel is a news and current affairs TV Channel, the provisions of the Uplinking and Downlinking Guidelines apply to Your TV Channel, which inter alia provide that a Company, like Your TV Channel, which runs a news and current affairs TV channel, is obliged to comply with the Programme Code as laid down in the Cable Television Network (Regulations) Act, 1995, and the Rules framed thereunder.

# “Our clients have instructed us to state that in telecasting the aforesaid press conferences and repeating the false and defamatory material relating to our clients in the manner aforesaid Your TV Channel is in complete violation of the said Uplinking Guidelines, and the said Downlinking Guidelines as also in complete and material breach of the Programme Code prescribed under the Cable Television Network Rules.”

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The RIL legal notice brings to question the wisdom of broadcasting “live” Kejriwal’s near-weekly press conferences towards the end of last year, sans any filters or fetters.

On the other hand, the authoritarian tone of the legal notice—reminding the recipients of uplinking and downlinking norms—throws light on the egg-shells on which private TV stations are walking in the “free” Republic.

The legal notice also swings the spotlight on big business ownership of and shadow over the media, especially when it is alleged to have both the main political parties, the Congress and BJP, in its pocket.

For the record, RIL is in the media business too. Both CNN-IBN and IBN7 are part of the Reliance stable following a controversial and circuitous takeover at the turn of 2012 that now has earned the OK of the competition commission of India (CCI).

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Photograph: courtesy IBN Live

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Also read: ‘RIL has no direct stake in media companies’

Mint says SEBI looking into RIL-Network18/TV18-ETV deal

Rajya Sabha TV tears into RIL-Network18-ETV deal

Will RIL-TV18-ETV deal win SEBI, CCI approval?

The sudden rise of Mukesh Ambani, media mogul

The Indian Express, Reliance & Shekhar Gupta

Niira Radia, Mukesh Ambani, Prannoy Roy & NDTV

Why the Indian media doesn’t take on the Ambanis

The many faces of Aakar Patel (as per Google)

Google now has a search facility by which you can look up images of people by putting in an image in the search window.

This is what turns up when you look for Aakar Patel, at various times the executive editor of Mid-Day, columnist for Mint Lounge, Hindustan Times, Express Tribune, First Post and Open, and a talking head on CNN-IBN.

Just.

He said it: ‘Indian journalism is regularly second-rate’

The curious case of Karan Thapar and a flyover

One of India’s top voices, Lata Mangeshkar, earned a fair bit of negative publicity for opposing the construction of a flyover on busy Peddar road in Bombay because it threatened to disturb her peace of mind.

Now, one of India’s top TV faces is threatening to follow in her footsteps in Delhi.

On July 29, The Times of India reported that anchor Karan Thapar had opposed the expansion of a flyover in the posh Vasant Vihar area because it would eat into the service lane in front of his house.

“Arguing that this could become “a matter of life and death”, Karan Thapar has written to lieutenant-governor Tejendra Khanna, pleading that “at all cost the service lane between houses 1 to 8, Palam Marg (Olaf Palme Marg), must not be further reduced in width but retained at its present width.”

In the letter dated July 13, Thapar claimed he was speaking on behalf of other residents. “I know that Aroon Purie, Editor-in-Chief of India Today and Aajtak, and Harmala Gupta, daughter of late Lt. Gen. Harbaksh Singh, endorse and support the request I am making in this letter…”

“The reason this worries me is that even with the present width of 6m, fire tenders cannot with ease access houses on this stretch of the service lane.”

In a follow-up story on August 5, ToI makes mincemeat of Thapar’s claim, quoting residents in the area who see an attempt “to hold the city to ransom for personal benefit”.

“The claim that it will be a matter of ‘life and death’ as fire engines and ambulances will not be able to reach their house is bogus, as is clear from the fire chief’s statement,” said Ratna Sahai, owner of house no 10, Vasant Marg. “The original Rao Tula Ram flyover was meant to be longer and wider. But these people had used their clout to have this altered and truncated into an abbreviated two-lane flyover to protect their precious service lane.” This allegation had earlier been denied.

Refuting Thapar’s claim that he had approached the president of the residents’ welfare association, Gautam Vohra, president of Vasant Vihar RWA, told TOI: “I have never been approached by Karan Thapar regarding the flyover or any related issue. These people have never raised their voice on water or other problems faced by people of the area, nor have they taken any interest in addressing issues of greater public good.”

Rajni Mathur, resident of C block and RWA member, pointed out that these people had themselves reduced the public service road to beautify what they treated as private land. “These are just a few people who don’t even live here and have never come to the RWA. They have encroached upon the service lane with gardens, guard houses and parked cars. They are concerned about their tenants leaving rather than anything else,” she said.

External reading: Express Newsline

Another (woman) journalist bites the stardust*

Is it just our eyes—or are more women journalists catching the fancy of bold-faced names with a far higher hit-rate than their bearded, bespectacled counterparts?

Prarthna Gahilote, a senior special correspondent with Outlook* magazine (and formerly with CNN-IBN), has tied the knot with the Bollywood singer Mohit Chauhan.

Images: courtesy Hindustan Times, Mail Today

* Disclosures apply

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Also read: BBC’s Supriya Menon weds filmstar Prithviraj

CNN-IBN’s Neha Seth weds minister Jitin Prasada