Twenty-twelve is just behind us and as you would expect from MxMIndia, we bring you the Mediaah! Dubious Achievement Awards 2012.
Before we set out to presenting them, a request: these ought to be taken in the right spirit and wherever required as indicators for improvement
The Colgate Sensitive Award
to the UPA government
for pouncing on to the news channels whenever it gets a lashing from them
The King Dasarath Award
to the IBF, ISA and AAAI
to banish TAM for 9 weeks on a whim
The Tu Tu Main Main Award
to WPP and NDTV
for fighting each other over viewership ratings via press communiques
The Manoj Kumar ‘Mera Bharat Mahaan’ Award
to Arnab Goswami
for boldly asking questions for India when nobody really cared (including many of us in the news media)
The Chandni Bar Award for Prostituting Journalism
to news media houses across the board
for selling their souls (and reader/viewer rights) for more money and less credibility. If Bennett Coleman gets the Lifetime Achievement award for introducing Medianet, many others sell or barter news for advertisements or for money, whether it has to do with a film release, a skin cream, a new soap or an election.
The Standard Chartered Marathon Award for Extra-Long Journalism
to Caravan
Although revived a few years back, it was kinda forgotten in the media until the December issue had its focus on The Times of India group, Arnab Goswami and other media biggies and issues. The Arnab piece is some 6000 words, the Samir-Vineet Jain story is 16,000. The story on the Jains took some eight months to write and the writer’s notes ran into over a hundred pages!
The Sachin Tendulkar ‘Never Say Retire’ or ‘Retire Till You Are Damned’ Award
to various media executives in advertising, journalism and the media sector…
People who ought to move out and making way for younger talent, but aren’t.
The Ghar Aaya Pardesi Award
to Joy Chakraborthy
for finding in alma mater BCCL a benefactor when he realized the TV Today Network was not the place for him as CEO
A Rolling Stone gathers More Moss Award
to biggies changing jobs
To all those who have changed jobs more than once in the last 12 months and still have the apetitite for more
The Pot calling the Kettle Black Award
to The Times of India and Zee News
For fighting over whose version of paid news and Medianet is worse in the Jindal case.
The Love to Hate and Hate to Love Award
to Barkha Dutt
for getting repeatedly accused of irresponsible journalism and generating far too much hot air on Twitter for her and our own good
The Kaju Feni Award for Promoting Goa
to the one million and 79 thousand advertising and PR awards ceremonies
… All held held in that state. Not to mention “think fests” and other such journalistic ego boosters.
The One Slap Award
to Idea
for getting the whole country going “Honey Bunny Pumpkin Dumpling” against its better wishes
The Rupert Murdoch Award for Media Moghul in the making
Kartikeya Sharma
for acquiring NewsX and Sunday Guardian. In the run-up to the 2014 elections, the Piccadily group managing director is stocking up his media empire. And how!
The Flop Show Award for the TV gimmick that didn’t get ratings:
to The Ram-Priya marriage consummation on Bade Achhe Lagte Hain
Sex in the living room – even married sex – doesn’t work. We’re Indian, have you forgotten?
The Red Bull award for Reality Show Fatigue
to all Hindi GECs
The low ratings that high spend reality shows like Kaun Banega Crorepati and Bigg Boss and Indian Idol and Sur-Kshetra may well bring the cost-effectivness debate to network boardrooms. How much do you pay for buzz?
The Kingfisher Lifetime Achievement Award
to AAAI and Advertising Club
We don’t know what the real reasons are for the apex advertising agency association to hold the annual adfest in Goa in the summer. Goa is fine, but can’t we do it in a better month.
The Kahaan Gaye Woh Log Award
to Dr Prannoy Roy
Possibly the first election results after many, many years when we didn’t see the NDTV bossman doing the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh election results analyses. Hope all’s well!?
The WTF Were You Doing All These Years Award
to Hindi GECs
by bringing us shows like Aamir Khan’s Satymev Jayati and Yuvraj Singh’s Zindagi Abhi Baaki Hai, Hindi GECs have show that there is space for meaningful content on entertainment channels
and finally:
The Arnab Goswami award for the Most Sound News TV Editor
to Arnab Goswami
Can an Arnab Goswami award go to anyone else?! But this is for the man himself, for having some special finger-on-the-pulse machine that makes other journalists cry.
Contributed by Pradyuman Maheshwari, Ranjona Banerji and Vidya Heble
By Pradyuman Maheshwari