MxMIndia

Category: TV

  • Zee Entertainment denies news on TV programming veteran Shailja Kejriwal holding the reins of Zee Smile's revamp programme

    ZEEL sources deny news on Shailja Kejriwal heading Zee Smile revamp

    By Sandeep Puraname

     

    One wouldn’t expect an IndianTelevision.com news to be incorrect. Its sources are impeccable.

     

    So even as Zee Entertainment honchos dismissed the IndianTelevision.com report that programming veteran Shailja Kejriwal was to head Zee Smile’s revamp, we wouldn’t rule it out completely. It’s perhaps work in progress, it’s possible that she will lead the effort on the channel’s revamp and may not be the business head. Currently, Priyanka Datta heads Zee Smile along with Zindagi and the rest of the free-to-air Hindi cluster.

     

    Watch this space for more.

     

  • It’s a pioneering pro-socio environment initiative that will empower and encourage kids to save the planet and its resources

    Nickelodean unveils The Big Green Change Project

    By A Correspondent

     

    Answering the Prime Minister’s clarion call for Swach Bharat and taking it a step further, Nickelodean has announced the Big Green Help, a pioneering pro-socio environment initiative that will empower and encourage kids to save the planet and its resources.

     

    The Big Green Help will provide information and tools to kids to understand the various environmental issues like conserving energy, preserving nature and fighting pollution hazards, amongst many others. Nick will make this serious topic very relevant and kid friendly with the adorable Nicktoons spreading the key message of saving the planet.

     

    Commenting on the initiative, Nina Elavia Jaipuria, EVP & Business Head, Kids Cluster said, “Nickelodeon continuously engages with kids on issues that affect their lives and encourages them to take action. With The Big Green Help, we aim to provide them with the necessary knowledge so they can become part of the environmental solution and ensure a brighter future for themselves.”

     

    Post the roaring success in the last couple of years, the Big Green Help initiative by Nickelodeon has now made its way into the digital space through an exclusive microsite (nickindia.com/BGH). The microsite will allow kids can to learn more about the environmental issues and proudly be the “Agents of Change” to make the world a healthier place The on air campaign further resonates this message and showcases  kids taking the higher ground and encouraging adults to walk the right path.

     

    Nickelodeon has also launched a new chapter in their environmentally friendly challenge by opening up an online game – The Big Green Game with a goal of kindling real-world action for environmental change. The very popular Motu Patlu Nicktoons will be featured wherein they will be on a mission to clean Furfuri Nagar and make it garbage free. The new online kid’s game seeks to use social media as a tool to help educate today’s children about global environmental concerns.

     

  • We have half a dozen sports channels besides Star Sports, and all of them have ignored the World Cup emphatically and whole-heartedly, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Shailesh Kapoor: World Cup Coverage: The Ticks & The Crosses

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    It’s the World Cup season and cricket is back into the forefront, leading conversations and consumption across media. The ratings of some of the key India games in this year’s World Cup have proven that the issue with declining ratings of ODI cricket in recent years is not about a loss of interest in the sport as such, but a rejection of meaningless cricket series that are played to generate revenue for the sport.

     

    A lot has changed on the broadcasting and technology front since the 2011 World Cup. The host broadcaster (Star Sports) has four sports channels, and for the first time, watching cricket online has been promoted as a genuine viewing option. Commentary feeds are available in multiple Indian languages, and more than 50 ex-Indian cricketers have been gainfully employed by Star Sports to cater to India’s linguistic diversity. All matches are available in High Definition, and we even have the 4K-technology option available.

     

    So, all’s well when it comes to live telecast of cricket. Despite match timings not being primetime-friendly in India, Star Sports has done a fair job of putting across a clinical performance on-air.

     

    But there’s a lot left to be desired outside the live hours. And here, I go beyond Star Sports. We have half a dozen sports channels besides Star Sports, and all of them have ignored the World Cup emphatically and whole-heartedly. In a healthy competitive environment, you would expect other sports channels to do strong guerilla programming around a big tournament such as the Cricket World Cup, to capture viewership in the non-playing hours.

     

    Star Sports attempted that in the 2003 World Cup. They had no access to match footage. But they created pre- and post-match shows for the purists, who would rather watch Ravi Shastri and Sunil Gavaskar discuss the game with Harsha Bhogle, than watch the Mandira Bedi show. The idea may not have a runaway success, but it was an excellent attempt at building equity around a big sports event within a reasonable cost.

     

    That we have no such ideas this year is the collateral damage of a monopolistic environment. Star Sports has gained every inch of the sporting turf over the last five years, acquiring all possible rights that have come their way. If they manage to bag the IPL rights when they come up renewal next in a couple of years, their dominance of sports broadcasting in India will be complete in every respect.

     

    Sports broadcasting has not been the most profitable business in India, and it is understandable that a giant like Star can pump in the investments which stand-alone brands like Ten or Neo struggled to.

     

    But the one area where Star Sports too may have missed the trick is the non-playing hours programming. All four channels play the same shows every night, which are essentially based on over-analysis of already over-analyzed games. The ancillary programming content in magazine formats is not more than 15-20 hours, I suspect. And a lot of this is content that’s not even fresh.

     

    Star Sports currently resembles a multiplex when a Salman Khan film releases. You may have six screens, but all you get is one film, one type of content. More channels don’t always mean more variety!

     

    News channels, meanwhile, have gainfully employed another 50-60 ex-India cricketers, including some very obscure ones, to run the same format which Star Sports runs on its channels – talking heads discussing today’s game and then tomorrow’s game.

     

    Come 2019 World Cup, that’s one change I’d hope to see, whereby the non-playing hours experience of a viewer is a more enriching one. And if some other channels don’t stand up to get their pound of flesh from the event, I hope there will be online options beyond ESPNcricinfo that would achieve the same.

     

  • The Open is set to see a series of nail-biting matches between players, who will battle it out to win the illustrious title and a total prize money of USD 275,000

    SONY SIX to broadcast Yonex Sunrise Tournament in India

    By A Correspondent

     

    SONY SIX is set to broadcast the Yonex Sunrise India 2015 from March 24th to March 29th. The tournament will be held at the Siri Fort Indoor Sports Complex in New Delhi and will witness some of India’s finest players including Srikanth Kadambi – the reigning Swiss Open champion, the world number 2 Saina Nehwal, Padma Shri winner P V Sindhu and the Commonwealth Games Gold medallist, Parupalli Kashyap take part in the proceedings.

     

    Apart from the top crop of Indian talent, the tournament will also feature top international badminton talents including Jan O Jorgensen, Dan Lin and the All England Open Championships winner, Carolina Marin. The Open is set to see a series of nail-biting matches between players, who will battle it out to win the illustrious title and a total prize money of USD 275,000.

     

    Prasana Krishnan, Business Head, SONY SIX said, “The India Open is undoubtedly the biggest major played in India every year and we are thrilled to come on board as the broadcasting partner for this marque tournament which attracts the best of Indian and international talent year on year. The viewer base for badminton in India has got stronger with every tournament in which our players feature. We expect the viewership to only grow manifold for this tournament considering its iconic status and the conducive telecast hours.”

     

    The tournament currently boasts of the BWF Super Series status, which was given to it in 2011. Super Series is a series of 12 prestigious tournaments played around the world, which also includes the highly coveted All England Open

     

  • As the first of the five regional ETV entertainment channels adopt Colors on March 22, we speak with the Viacom18 Group CEO

    Building on Colors. Interview with Sudhanshu Vats

     

    It may have been more of a coincidence. A day before the first day of the festival of colours, Viacom18 announced its five regional entertainment channels would drop the ETV branding and adopt Colors. The ETV GECs, owned by Prism TV Private Limited and part of the Viacom18 networks, has operations in the Hindi entertainment, youth, children, English entertainment and regional clusters.

     

    Speaking to MxMIndia, hours after making the announcement, Viacom18 Group CEO Sudhanshu Vats said the exercise helps in building the Colors franchise. Colors, as a brand, has become the cultural touchstone for millions of Indians across the world, he said.

     

    Meanwhile, Colors Marathi will be relaunched on Sunday, March 22 starting 6:30 pm with MICTA awards (the Marathi film and theatre industry awards like the IIFA) and two new shows starting March 23 – Majhe Hoshil Ka and Sakhi. Colors Oriya will go live on April 1 while the Bangla channel will happen on April 12. Colors Kannada and Gujarati will go live on April 19.

     

    Excerpt from an interview.

     

    The rebranding of the entertainment bouquet with the Colors prefix may now appear to be a no-brainer. But for how long has this been in the works?

    Yes, Colors’ foray into other general entertainment spaces or language general entertainment is natural. From a strategic point of view, it expands the footprint of Colors as a brand. Particularly in general entertainment, we are a multi-brand media network. So, whether it is Nick in kids or MTV in youth and Colors in general entertainment, the natural extension of all our marquee brands into subsequent languages is a very natural strategic move. I think ETV as a brand enjoyed legacy, because it was the first regional brand, it had history and huge loyalty to some extent. But one of the things we noticed was that it had also aged a little and was not contemporary enough. If we juxtapose ETV with Colors, Colors, as a brand, stands out for its young, modern, urban, contemporary and innovative nature. Therefore, from a consumer angle as well as strategic point of view, it was almost natural that you move as we build it.

     

    So just as youth brands are under MTV and for kids, there’s Nick, couldn’t we have had separate brands for the regional and Hindi GECs?

    It all depends on how you look at it as a segment. If you look at the genre as general entertainment and within that regional and language segmentation, then may be one brand for general entertainment, which is indeed Colors, does make sense. And, therefore, it has the capacity to have that scale. While Hindi is of course predominant in India, without doubt, at this movement at least, in viewership too, regional is also catching up the fast. To be honest, the answer is yes one could have had a dedicated brand. At the same time, could you have extension of your GE brand into other GE spaces? The answer is yes again. To me from some scale and some brand halo and Synergy point of view, may be it makes more sense to sort of…

     

    The Colors as channel we know it is not going to be rechristened?Or suffixed Colors Hindi?

    No.

     

    Colors, the Hindi GEC brand, is bold, young, urban breaks barriers and, well, a lot of money is spent on its programming and marketing. The expectation will be the same from the language GECs? And if not fulfilled, it could have a slightly negative rub-off on the Hindi GEC?

    We will of course try and play out the same brand philosophy and brand mantra. That’s the thinking behind it.

     

    In terms of programming are you looking at a significant change from what’s there right now? Or will we see a significant leap in look, feel and content?

    I’ll answer this in two parts. TV18 expressed its interest to acquire ETV in 2011-2012. Basically, post-TV18’s acquisition of ETV, we’ve been associated with them from a synergy point of view. What we’ve done across these regional Prism channels is let the Prism team look at some of the things they can pick up. To give you some of the examples, we’ve already attempted Big Brother in Bangla and Kannada. In Kannada, the Prism team has looked at ‘Dancing with the stars’ which is ‘Jhalak Dikhla Jaa’. It is in its second season and has been very successful and is already the No 1 show this year. We’ve also looked at few shows that are about ideas from Viacom18. Let me give you an example of another show called ‘Indian’ we ran on ETV Kannada. It’s Roadies meets Bigg Boss! There are also programming shows like Balika Vadhu, which are remade, Madhubala, Uttaran, in regional forms. From a programming perspective, it’s a two-stage journey. Journey 1 is already on from synergies and it has helped uplift the viewership of these channels. And #2, as we launch with the rebranded Colors, you’ll see considerable change in programming.

     

    Will there be any change in the Hindi GEC?

    Colors continues its journey. We’re a strong No 2 as you know and we’ll continue to work on that. That’s a completely independent piece.

     

    The launch of &TV means some tough competition for Colors, right?

    Early days. We’ve It’s been positioned as an urban channel with some amount of social messaging, reasonably high decibel and expansive non-fiction. So, the zone you seem to see it is in Colors. The direct competition could be more with Colors. It makes a lot of sense if you step into Zee’s boots. Zee enjoys a huge legacy. They enjoy a tremendous first-mover advantage, clearly in distribution. I think they’ll be ahead of Star, in sheer distribution. Because of that, I can say that they are slightly less urban.

     

    Would you at any time look at a mid-market GEC?

    We keep evaluating from time to time. There are two ways of looking at it. One is that may be there is more room for more GECs in India and that could be a hypothesis. The second is that people have tried and not many have succeeded. You had others, headed by people who had reasonable experience. Off late also, Zee’s Zindagi made a very different attempt. Sony Pal, which is almost like a full-fledged GEC, wasn’t very successful. We’ll see what comes there. There is one school of thought that there are four or five GECs which have established themselves and may be as a GEC there is room for just about this much. The second school of thought is that there is more room. To answer your question, yes we are looking at it, evaluating. We don’t have anything firm at this moment.

     

    Surely, more is in the offing. We hear about an English GEC. Any indicators of the directions you are looking at?

    My answer on this one is also similar. I don’t want to say something we’re not yet firm at. Basically, you’ll be seeing more offerings. I can’t share them convincingly till I don’t know them well. But, yes, we’ll continue to deepen and strengthen our presence in the genres we’re playing in.

     

  • Prior to this, since January 2012, Swati has been spearheading the programming and content portfolio for the bouquet of channels

    Swati Mohan takes over as Business Head for Fox International Channels India

    By A Correspondent

     

    Swati Mohan

    Fox International Channels India announced the appointment of Swati Mohan as the Business Head of the company. Swati has been elevated to the new responsibility from her previous role of Vice President – Content and Programming at FOX International Channels, India. In her new role, she will take over the India operations from Keertan Adyanthaya with effect from 30th March, 2015. She will be reporting into the Hong Kong Office and shall be heading the network portfolio of all existing FOX International Channels in India including its strong existing iconic brands like National Geographic Channel and FOX Life as well as the other network channel properties like Baby TV, Nat Geo Wild, Nat Geo Adventure, Nat Geo Music and National Geographic Channel HD.

     

    Prior to this, since January 2012, Swati has been spearheading the programming and content portfolio for the bouquet of channels including National Geographic Channel and Fox Life. She has over 16 years of experience in the industry, with a wide spectrum of work across companies including Group M, O&M, FBC Media and Endemol previously.

     

    Commenting on the change, Keertan Adyanthaya, Managing Director, NGC Network India & Fox International Channels said, “Swati has been leading the content team at Fox for the past 3 years and has done a stellar job. When it was time to choose a new leader for our business, we didn’t have to look beyond Swati. She has a keen understanding of the content and having been a key part of the hard working & dedicated team here, she will lose no time in propelling our company to even greater heights.”

     

  • The new foray was flagged of by COLORS Marathi in a star-studded Gudi Padwa extravaganza on 20th March, 2015

    Colors Marathi takes off on a high

    By A Correspondent

     

    Colors Marathi, the Marathi-language channel from the Viacom18 stable, began its new innings on the eve of the Maharastrian New Year. As reported earlier, this is a part of the recent announcement by Viacom18 on rebranding five ETV regional general entertainment channels.

    The change was brought in on Sunday, March 22 with the airing of the “Marathi International Film and Theatre Awards” (MICTA), an event that saw the best in Marathi Film and theatre celebrate the success of the industry in Dubai. The entertainment quotient is to be upped further with the launch of three  new shows: “Amchya Gharat Soon Bai Joraat” at 6.30pm, “Majha Hoshil Ka” on at 9.30pm and Sakhi on at 10.00pm… all premiering today (March 23).

     

    Said Anuj Poddar, Business Head Colors Marathi (pictured right above with Viacom18 Group CEO Sudhanshu Vats) : “We are truly excited about this new chapter and are looking forward to doing what we do best i.e. to bring great quality content and entertainment to millions of our Marathi viewers. We hope that the audiences will continue to enjoy our shows.  I am hopeful that this will be a key milestone in the continuing growth of the Marathi entertainment industry and take the entire Marathi TV entertainment industry to much greater heights.”

    Added Sanjay Upadhyay, Content Head the channel: “The new journey is a great milestone for us and we will continue to redefine the television viewing experience for your viewers. The three new shows that are set to launch are all unique and address the varying needs of our audiences. Hope that our viewers make these engaging and entertaining show a part of their daily lives”

     

  • Apart from this, Kasthuri TV has lined up four new shows to be launched by mid-April this year

    Kasthuri TV unveils new logo as part of repositioning exercise

    By A Correspondent

     

    GEC channel Kasthuri TV from Karnataka has been undergoing an extensive revamp since the past three months and as part of the exercise has unveiled its new logo on the auspicious festival of Ugadi. The reason behind the logo change is to enhance the look and feel of the channel while keeping its TG in mind. The colourful new logo has been designed with the intent of captivating its audience especially women and the youth.

     

     

    P Kailasam

    WHN’s CEO, P Kailasam said, “We are giving the channel a new look and apart from the new programming line-up we are also working towards changing the look of the channel. To begin with, we just launched the new channel logo on the auspicious occasion of Ugadi.”

     

    “It is a pivotal time for Kasthuri TV. The new shows that were launched earlier this year increased the channel’s standing among clients and agencies alike. The channel’s aggressive revamp strategy is setting the business up for great long-term success in the Kannada GEC space,” added Alok Rakshit, Business Head – Regional Channels, Aidem Ventures Pvt. Limited.

     

     

    Alok Rakshit

    Apart from this, Kasthuri TV has lined up four new shows to be launched by mid-April this year. Of those, two will be in the fiction category and two in the non-fiction category. Of the two fiction shows, one is a Woman-centric daily which focuses on the relationship between a man and his daughter. The other, also being a daily soap, is a love story that goes through various tests and trials and still stands strong. On the other hand, out of the two non-fiction shows, one will solely focus on children’s entertainment and the other will be for adults. Kasthuri TV is also in the process of giving a completely new look to its cookery show “Kitchen Kamaal”, in order to make it appealing to its viewers, especially Women.

     

  • General Entertainment channel localized for the Indonesian audience

    Zee Entertainment launches Zee Hiburan in Indonesia

    By A Correspondent

     

    Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL) announced the launch of Zee Hiburan in Indonesia. ‘Zee Hiburan’, which means ‘Zee Entertainment’ in English, is a GEC that features popular Indian serials localized for the mainstream Indonesian audience.

     

    Speaking on the launch of Zee Hiburan, Sushruta Samanta, Business Head – Asia Pacific, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. (ZEEL) said, “Zee Hiburan in Indonesia is our 3rd launch in the APAC region in the last 14 months, following Zee Bioskop and Zee Nung. Zee Hiburan will consolidate our position and market share in Indonesia, which is one of the fastest growing Pay-TV markets in the region. Our initial interaction with the distributors was very encouraging, which propelled us to launch a GEC Channel within a year of launching our Bollywood channel, Zee Bioskop in the market. Indian content has created a huge wave in the local FTA space and with Zee Hiburan, we believe that we will be able to take it to the next level.”

     

    Sushruta Samanta

    Sharing more details on the channel, Mariaa Gint Lizing, Country Head, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. (ZEEL) said, “With Indian stories narrated like never before, Zee Hiburan promises to engage the viewers with shows that travel from the eras of the kings and queens to the modern world. The channel is positioned as ‘Color Your Life’ showcasing every emotion in the most colorful fashion. Inspired from paper puppets & paper quilling art forms, the channel packaging is artistically designed to merge the Indonesian & Indian cultures.”

     

    The channel will showcase popular ZEE shows and dramas like Ramayan, Jhansi ki Rani, Jodha Akbar, Kumkum Bhagya, Pavitra Rishta, Kasam Se, Sapne Suhane Ladakpan, Jab Love Hua, Fear Files and many more.

     

    Zee Hiburan – Warnai Hidup Anda (Zee Entertainment – Color your life) is currently available as a pay channel on ICTA – Indonesia Cable TV Association and K Vision (DTH platform) and will soon be available on more platforms in the market. After the successful launch of Zee Bioskop in Indonesia last year, Zee Hiburan is geared up to woo the local Indonesian audience with popular Indian daily soaps.

     

  • Weekends will witness the latest seasons of shows with fresh content airing closer to US dates

    AXN announces slew of programming initiatives for 2015

    By A Correspondent

     

    AXN has announced a new programming line-up and schedule for 2015. It has tied up with a host of international studios such as CBS, Sony Pictures, BBC, WB, MGM, NBC Universal, Buena Vista International, Fremantle Media, Endemol, FOX and many others.

     

    During weekdays, signature shows like Guinness, Ripley’s, American Ninja Warrior, Wipeout will be aired at 8pm. This will be followed by reality television at 9pm with shows like Fear Factor, So You Think You Can Dance, Top Chef, America’s Next Top Model, Survivor, The Amazing Race etc. The 10 pm slot has a host of famous crime shows like 24, Elementary, NCIS, CSI and many more.

     

    Adding to the dosage, weekends will witness the latest seasons of shows with fresh content airing closer to US dates. Sherlock S4, Supernatural S11, Orphan Black S3, Hannibal S3, Elementary S4, Voice S9 & S10, Madam Secretary S2, Extant S2, CSI: Cyber and Scorpion S3 being some of the best international TV series to watch out for.

     

    Saurabh Yagnik

    Commenting on the new programming strategy and the AXN HD launch, Saurabh Yagnik, Executive Vice-President and Business Head, Sony PIX and AXN said, “Digitisation has opened an interesting opportunity for the Category. For a start issues relating to Distribution and Availability have been addressed. Further, the category has now become more amenable to appointment based viewing. The audience is seeking two kinds of content. One, shows which are iconic and familiar and two, which are served fresh from the US. With strong content partnerships, AXN offers the widest variety of iconic shows in the most diverse genres like premium reality, crime, edgy drama and signature AXN shows. It is home to some of the most iconic characters from various shows. It also offers fresh from US shows on the weekend.”

     

  • Themed as 'Connecting Dots…', this new brand campaign will replicate the channel's vision and editorial ethos

    iTV Network seeks to ‘Connect Dots’ via new identity

    By A Correspondent

     

    iTV Network has launched a mega brand campaign for the first time since its inception covering all its media brands namely NewsX, India News (National and its four regional channels) and its two print publications-The Sunday Guardian and Aaj Samaj. Starting March 16th, Monday iTV Network will also reveal a fresh look.

     

    Themed as ‘Connecting Dots…’, this new brand campaign will replicate the channel’s vision and editorial ethos. Every dot has a story. They are often the links to the bigger patterns of the universe and life. But these are often so tiny that we miss it literally and metaphorically. iTV Network will find the invisible and connect them with what is known and discover what is still a possibility.

     

    Speaking on the launch of this campaign, Kartikeya Sharma, Managing Director, iTV Network, said, “This is the first time we are launching a brand campaign for the entire network since its inception. This will take the network’s philosophy to the next level.”

     

    Savvy Dilip, Group CMO, iTV Network, said, “We are confident that this new look of the network complemented by this brand campaign will be highly appreciated and bring in a breath of fresh air to the brand. This campaign will be supported by a robust 360 degree marketing campaign.”

     

  • Did Arnab Goswami and his channel overdo the nationalistic bit post India's debacle in the World Cup? Ranjona Banerji & Pradyuman Maheshwari comment

    Down with Times Now, #RejectArnab

     

     

    Time to #Reject Arnab

     

    By Pradyuman Maheshwari

     

    In 2008, well before 26/11 or the Mumbai terror attack, I had written that Arnab Goswami is a lot better than Rajdeep Sardesai and Barkha Dutt (and of course a host of other stars on NDTV). He asked the tough questions, he spoke for you and me. There were no holy cows in his book then.

     

    Around November 26, he did the smart thing of sticking around the studio and not getting out on the field. Whether it was because he feared for his life or whether it was by intent, it worked well for the channel because it had its best man in the studio helping in the packaging of the channel.

     

    Over the years though, the success has got him to turn arrogant on television. If you don’t agree with his line of thinking, even the gods won’t be able to save you. If we thought that Karan Thapar would heckle his guests and often speak more than the people he was quizzing, Arnab takes this art to an all-new level. He just doesn’t allow them to speak beyond half a sentence.

     

    He’s aggressive. He’s offensive. Sadly, he’s also repulsive.

     

    But all of that has worked for the channel and him. He attracts maximum ratings and political leaders love to be on his show because it gives them great visibility.

     

    Ad spots on his show are a few x times more expensive than those on some other English news channels. It’s all going right for the man. And his channel.

     

    But many of us find him crossing the limits for a few years now. The problem with Arnab is that he doesn’t believe in half-measures. He goes on the rampage. I would like to not offer any analogies with the behaviour of other beings, but anyone who comes in his way, is mauled.

     

    Bottomline: Arnab is getting obnoxious. And needs to be tamed soon. If the The Times of India group doesn’t do it, the law-enforcers could.

     

    Ideally of course he should be subjected his fate by viewers who could reject his channel and watch others. But, then, the alternatives aren’t energetic enough. So there are many who still consider him the best of the lot. Plus it’s entertainment. Since the next season of Bigg Boss is still some months away, Newshour is the show everyone loves to watch. There the inmates scream at each other, here the studio guests do that. And so does the master of ceremonies: Arnab Goswami.

     

    Now, as Ranjona Banerji writes alongside, even his lieutenants are doing it.

     

    On the evening after India was humbled by Australia in the semi finals of the 2015 World Cup Cricket, after various elements on social media had converted their dismay to jokes and jibes, one would’ve expected an Oxford-educated Arnab to put things in perspective and not fuel the cause of the lumpen elements.

     

    But what we saw was an unnecessary whipping up of nationalistic passion. Stuff that we can do without. Time to Reject Arnab. Let’s hashtag it, as he loves to do. #RejectArnab

     

    		  

    No longer any connection to journalism

     

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Ding dong ding dong… hear that? It’s the death knell of journalism being rung in India thanks to Times Now. That Times Now is on a collision course with both good sense and reality is well known. But did the new channel reach the end game on Thursday, March 26, after India lost in the semi-final of the Cricket World Cup against Australia in Sydney? The answer could well be “yes”.I can safely say that I have never been as appalled with a pair of journalists in 30 years in the profession as I was with the display that Anand Narasimhan and Tina Sharma Tiwari put up on television after the semi-final. People reacted with so much anger to their “#ShamedAtSydney” hashtag running across the screen that #ShameonTimesNow was soon trending on Twitter and continued to do so up to Friday morning.

     

    Fans react with irrational anger when their favourite team or player loses. But for journalists to outdo badly behaved fans deserves the strongest condemnation. Not only were the two anchors foaming and frothing at the mouth but they seemed unable to distinguish between their roles and that of a fan ready to burn an effigy. It almost seemed as if they were egging fans on to misbehave; and suggesting that any such behaviour was justified.

     

    Some of the panellists on Times Now just after the loss, like Charu Sharma, Atul Wassan and later Zaheer Khan tried to inject reason and sense into the discussion. But neither the anchors nor Saad Bin Jung were having any of it. For them, India capitulated, Dhoni should have cried like AB De Villiers of South Africa, Kohli was distracted by Anushka Sharma’s presence and the team played like “stupid amateurs”.

     

    The trouble is that all these are believable as reactions from loony fans. Not from journalists who are either supposed to report on proceedings or, as in the case of TV, ask other people to analyse them. The spectacle of Narasimhan and Sharma-Tiwari screeching at the guests was unedifying and appalling. The two of them are supposed to be sports journalists but there was no semblance of any understanding of sport visible from them. Narasimhan had a mega tantrum over the rights of fans versus sense and Sharma-Tiwari had her own hissy fit about Dhoni’s apparent lack of emotion at the loss – as determined by her.

     

    What viewers might have wanted to see was some analysis of what went wrong. The panellists on the side of reason (the wrong side as far as Times Now was concerned) argued that the Indian team had played well so far, mentioned how well Australia had played, pointed out that there was no reason for the Indian players to purposely play badly. But the anchors were having none of it.

     

    The defining moment for me was Sharma-Tiwari questioning the lack of application by the Indian players. The irony was that neither she nor Narasimhan showed any application to the tenets of journalism. It is tempting to blame Times Now’s editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami for this behaviour. By manipulating The Newshour as his personal soapbox, he appears to have encouraged his staff to become rabble rousers and instigators. Even if he did not instruct either of them to behave in this manner, he has clearly inspired them. I did not watch Goswami himself on Thursday because I had had enough of the channel by then. But my colleague Pradyuman Maheshwari had his own share of heart attacks watching The Newshour.

     

    I have defended Times Now and Goswami before, if only because I felt he had a finger on the pulse. But I fear that I have to concede defeat. Times Now may provide entertainment of the lowest and basest kind but it no longer has any connection to journalism.