Ranjona Banerji: Sports channels blank out tennis yet again

By Ranjona Banerji

Once again, as an anniversary of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre looms, India Today TV has interviewed former Union minister, former journalist and former BJP leader, Arun Shourie. Or, one should clarify that, Karan Thapar interviewed Shourie. After last year’s interview, it is clear that Shourie is going to attack the Modi government. This is especially intriguing because this is India Today TV, where between some of India Today TV’s best-known news anchors, India Today’s journalists and Mail Today’s editors, you have some of the most nationalistic, pro-government journalists available in India.

Perhaps, though, India Today is also a “federal structure” like Bennett Coleman, where there is no one party line and different outlets within the organisation speak in different tongues. In Bennett Coleman, however, the differences are extreme – that is, no one in any of the newspapers quite speaks in the same tone or news sense of Arnab Goswami and Times Now. At India Today TV, shifts are may be more subtle. It is important to note that Karan Thapar is not an employee per se and he just picked up his very successful show from what was CNN-IBN and moved to what was Headlines Today. Some time after Thapar, once part-owner CNN-IBN and another of India’s best known TV anchors, Rajdeep Sardesai also made the shift to Headlines Today.

India Today TV is therefore an intriguing mix of Thapar, Sardesai, Rahul Kanwal and Gaurav Sawant, among others, all of whom have very different styles and sensibilities. I name these because they are the most prominent, although Preeti Choudhury, Shiv Aroor and TS Sudhir are also names that stand out.

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For sheer entertainment, though, nothing is quite like the new English news channel News 9. Karnataka-based, it gives you all the inside dope on what’s happening in Karnataka. It has a very “masala” style to all news is presented in an upbeat and tabloid-ish manner. There are long entertainment segments where you learn interesting things like there’s an Independence Day part 2 coming up in a world where disaster films are a “dime a doze”.

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As an avid tennis viewer, I am now ready to retire hurt. How much can one complain about India’s half-baked sports channels? Sony’s recent marriage to ESPN has meant that none of ESPN’s sports properties see the light of day. Because only IPL matches see the light of day. Sometimes IPL travels across all Sony’s channels. Earlier, when ESPN was married to Star, there was some possible tennis on show. In fact, between Ten and Star, tennis followers got spoilt. We had so much to watch.

But now with this plethora of sports channels in India (Star, Ten, Sony, Neo), we in fact feel deprived. This year, 2016, is one of the first that I can recall in years, where so many important tennis tournaments have been blanked out. Women’s tennis is hardly to be seen and on the ATP tours, almost none of the Masters 1000 have been on air. Ten struggles along with some WTA tournaments and some small ATP tournaments. Star has the most channels but two of them show reruns of old cricket matches, old kabaddi matches and random old programming. The other two show football. One Sony channel has started showing the ongoing Rome Masters for two hours in the afternoon. Most important matches will happen after that time frame but who cares, right?

Sigh. To the internet we go. Television has no one to blame but itself for this.