MxMIndia

Tag: NBF

  • Signifies amalgamation of television and digital ecosystems

    News Broadcasters & Digital Association logo unveiled

    By Our Staff

     

    In keeping with its change of name – from News Broadcasters Association (NBA)  to News Broadcasters & Digital Association (NBDA), the association has unveiled a new logo to reflect the name change. The new logo consists of two rings which are in unison with each other. This unison signifies the amalgamation of television and digital ecosystems.

     

    Talking about the change, NBDA President Rajat Sharma said: “I firmly believe that the NBDA will become a strong collective voice for both the broadcast and digital media. Along with commercial and regulatory issues, it will also enable the Association to defend the fundamental right of free speech and expression guaranteed to the media in the Constitution of India in a better manner.”

     

    Now if only the two rings working in unison in the logo could also mean the NBDA and the NBF. While having more than one industry association ensures there’s no monopoly and both offer more and better to their members, there is need for all news channels to stay united and speak in one voice.

     

  • It has formally been registered as a Self-Regulatory Body under the new amendments in the Cable Television Network Act

    MIB formally recognises NBF’S self-regulatory body

    By Our Staff

     

    The Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has officially recognised the News Broadcasters Federation (NBF)’s self-regulatory body. “The granting of official status by the MIB to the NBF makes the body the only institution of its kind in the entire nation to get the accreditation from the Government of India,” notes an NBF communique. MxMIndia hasn’t verified this. The older News Broadcasters Association’s self-regulatory body has been in existence for much longer.

     

    Said NBF President Arnab Goswami: “I want to thank all the members of the governing body of the NBF who have worked with me towards making this happen. The media has a pivotal role in strengthening our democracy and taking it to even greater heights. Strengthening the framework of the self-regulation of the media is a big step in that direction. And that’s exactly what the NBF has been working round the clock towards. The NBF prides on its democratic structure and roots across the country. Different languages, dynamic formats and varied audiences, but what binds the NBF is our commitment in coming together to strengthen the media pillar of Indian democracy. We look forward to working with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to further strengthen self-regulation in our media.”

     

    Added R Jai Krishna, Secretary General of the NBF: “We are privileged to be the first officially recognised self-regulatory body to be registered for TV news broadcasters. We are grateful to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and our members for reposing trust and faith. We ensure that we will take the news broadcasting of the country to great milestones with our democratic structure, excellence in self-regulation, and bringing the truth and reflections to the doorsteps across the country in maximum languages.”

     

  • The Board apprised the minister on key issues facing the news industry, the recent growth and trends in the news broadcasting sector and the challenges facing the news broadcasting industry in recent times

    NBF Board also meets new I&B Minister, makes case for resumption of ratings

    By Our Staff

     

    News Broadcasters Federation’s governing board members held a meeting with Union Information & Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur on Tuesday.  The Board apprised the minister on key issues facing the news industry, the recent growth and trends in the news broadcasting sector and the challenges facing the news broadcasting industry in recent times.

     

    During the meeting, members of the NBF highlighted the need for the “immediate resumption of viewership ratings for the news genre, which have been unilaterally paused and has severely impacted the sustainability of  news channels”.

     

    Said Thakur, “It was a pleasure to meet and exchange views with the NBF governing board led by Mr Arnab Goswami. It was a productive exchange of views and I look forward to engaging with the NBF on issues regarding news broadcasting and the role of news broadcasting in strengthening our democracy.”

     

    Added Goswami: “The meeting of NBF members with the minister was a wonderful opportunity to apprise him about the steps we have taken to build India’s largest federation of news broadcasters. The minister has heard our views and concerns in detail and we look forward to working with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to make the news broadcasting sector even stronger.”

     

    Added Barun Das, CEO of News9 Network and Vice President of the NBF: “It was a pleasure to be a part of the NBF delegation to meet the honourable minister of I&B. The highly competitive news TV genre certainly needs a level-playing field for new promising players both in the national arena and regional markets. We  felt extremely assured after our meeting today.” The TV9/News9 network is now back as an NBF member.

     

    Added Shankar Bala, CEO of Fourth Dimension and Vice President of the NBF after the meeting with the Minister: “Today’s meeting was really pathbreaking. It was a great opportunity to meet the minister. He was extremely cordial and he heard us patiently. Whatever the issues were, those were addressed. We have particularly stated that it is essential to release the viewership ratings for news channels, which were unilaterally stopped. The resumption of the publication of news ratings will ensure fair play and a measurement-driven competitive news industry. We have a lot of expectations after our talks.”

     

    And this is what Bhuyan Sarma, Managing Director of Pride East Entertainments said: “’It was a cordial meeting with Mr Anurag ji and it was a very positive meeting. As a team, NBF put forth the problems we tend to face and the ways in which we want to raise and address our concerns. At least, we can go forward and help regional industries survive, like ours. The minister gave us a patient hearing and we are very grateful to the ministry. We are now looking forward to the future and ways as to how we can progress together.”

     

    Said Kartikeya Sharma, Promoter of ITV Network and Vice-President of the NBF:  “It was a very positive meeting with the minister. The minister heard out all the matters raised by various members of the NBF. I would like to thank the ,inister for hearing the viewpoints of all news channels from across India and from regional channels as well.”

    The NBF delegation included Goswami, Das, Sanjive Narain, Founder/Managing Director of Prag News, Sarma, Sharma, Bala, Hemant Sharma, News Director of TV9 Bharatvarsh, Manoj Gairola, Editor-in-chief of News Nation, Mahendra Bhatla, Chairperson of MHOne, Divaakar S, Business Head of Newsfirst Kannada, R. Jai Krishna, Secretary-General of NBF and Eshita, Associate for Policy and Regulations of NBF.

     

  • The numbers tell the story. Time for the genre to wake up, and stop fighting, writes Pradyuman Maheshwari.

    Present Imperfect. Future Shock. News Channels lose as GECs gain

    By Pradyuman Maheshwari

     

    Ring-a ring-a ratings

    Claims versus shoutings

    Cops, CBI, advertisers & viewers frown

    And we all fall down!

     

     

    So here’s another take-off on our favourite nursery rhyme, partly courtesy a friend and fellow-columnist. But before you look at the graphs: here’s an exercise.

     

    Fill in the Blank:

     

    The News Channels genre is getting _______.

     

    Since you have to putting the answer in your own language, choose whatever word you would like.

     

    The numbers tell the story.

     

    Here they are:

    Please click on image if you find this unclear

     

    If you prefer graphs, look at these:

     

    May we alert you that these numbers are not validated from BARC. They have come in from two different sources. But we will update if necessary, when we’ve got it from BARC. Btw, we chose 2+ and not 15+/22+ AB one mn plus or all-India, because it was easier to compare with GECs.

     

    The message is clear. News channels – in Hindi, Regional, English and Hindi Regionals (like MP, Bihar etc) need to do some soul-searching.

     

    If they continue to fight, if they continue to not do the right things, there’s bound to be trouble. For themselves.

     

    News channels owners, editors and managers need to stop fighting. The best of political and corporate forces have buried their differences. Many moons ago, India TV had exited the News Broadcasters Association for reasons that are best not recalled now. More recently TV9 quit the association and we heard of some talks of a possible litigation. So there’s no reason why NBA and NBF can’t combine forces. Call it something else if necessary. Rejig the set of officebearers. But it’s important to have a strong, joint force.

     

    Be competitive. Stop fighting. Let’s stop putting each other’s images on telly. Let’s stop group media entities to participate in a ‘maaro saale ko’ campaign.

     

    We’ve seen what’s happened thanks to all of this. It could only get worse. Serious.

     

    Advertisers have not yet said goodbye, but if they see lower ratings, they could.

     

    Enough said. Have a good weekend.

     

    And this Dassera, Dussehra or however you spell it, let’s kill the (d)evils within us.

     

  • The NBF statement assumes significance given that it is led by Republic Media Networks MD and Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami.

    Daggers drawn. NBF opposes BARC move. Says it wasn’t consulted on ratings pause

    By A Correspondent

     

    The News Broadcasters Federation (NBF), the ‘other’ industry association of news television channels, has strongly objected to BARC’s statement to pause audience estimates (ratings) of news channels. The NBF statement assumes significance given that it is led by Republic Media Networks MD and Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami.

    In a statement issued to the media on Thursday, the NBF has said:

     

    1.BARC did not consult the News Broadcasters Federation, before such a crucial decision, which impacts news broadcasting industry, the single-largest genre within television sector. BARC would not have taken any such crucial decision if it had involved any genre, without consulting GECs member channels.

    2. BARC meters do not single-out the news genre in its audience measurement system. If BARC sincerely wants to review and augment its system, it should pause ratings for all genres including General Entertainment Channels (GEC), Sports, Infotainment, Movies, Music, Kids, Youth and Lifestyle.

    3. Information has come out recently about a channel which has been found guilty of TRP manipulation and has been fined by BARC Disciplinary Committee. NBF is shocked that a member of the same channel has been included on the board of BARC. It’s not just conflict of interest and no reasonable decision making process can happen with a person named in ratings manipulations. What has happened itself is shocking. Now the matter is in public domain, this individual on the Board of BARC should voluntarily remove the said executive from the Board of Directors for a period of at least one year.

    Said R Jai Krishna, General-Secretary, and News Broadcasters Federation: “The decision is unilateral, one-sided and undemocratic, impacting and targeting one single genre within the broadcasting ecosystem. The decision will severely impact news broadcasters, who have seen a surge in ratings despite the challenges of a lower-than-expected economic growth that has impacted their revenues already, in addition to the financial impact created by the lockdown to prevent spread of Covid-19.”

  • The NBF, the communique added, would also like to point out that viewership trends in news channels have significantly risen, as per the latest report on trends put out jointly by BARC and Nielsen on Friday morning

    News Broadcasters Fed asks ad fraternity for help

    By A Correspondent

     

    The News Broadcasters Federation has reached out to advertisers with a plea that news channels have emerged as the single greatest source of news and information at a critical time of the lockdown. Adds a communique: “Across India, broadcasters in all languages are doing non stop programming with an almost 100 % focus on battling the Coronavirus and ensuring the success of the nationwide lockdown. Besides the news on the latest figures of corona infected and the degree of spread of the pandemic, news channels have put hundreds of experts, doctors, public health experts, civil and police personnel, and government officials on air in a massive effort to disemminate the right information and counter the barrage of fake news.”

     

    Said Arnab Goswami, President of the News Broadcasters Federation, in a statement: “At a time when other media can scale down resources and expenses, news broadcasters are scaling up their effort, and going all out to scale up their resources on the ground. We, the news broadcasters of India, consider ourselves as a public and emergency and essential service at a time of national crisis, and are absolutely committed to play our role in ensuring that by reaching out to the largest part of Indias 1.3 billion people, we stall the spread of this dangerous virus. I appeal at this time to all my friends in the media industry, and our partners in all sectors to contribute to the efforts of the news broadcasters by supporting news channels in terms of advertising on this period as a preferred partner in thuis difficult time.”

     

    The NBF, the communique added, would also like to point out that viewership trends in news channels have significantly risen, as per the latest report on trends put out jointly by BARC and Nielsen on Friday morning. The press note said: “As per the report, the viewing of news channels had gone up in last week by 57 % and Hindi news channels by 67 %. Regional language news channels are also seeing a major spike in viewership and the increase in viewership has been across segments. Interestingly, BARC CEO Sunil Lulla had pointed out during the press conference that even the kids category saw viewership jump in news channel consumption by a whopping 87 % which is a clear indicator that the nature of informative and contextual news programming on battling Covid 19 among news channels is being received favourably across all segments of the TV audiences.”

     

     

  • News Broadcasters Federation meets to create charter and governance board

    By A Correspondent

     

    The top deck of India’s news Industry, part of the News Broadcasters Federation (NBF) met in Mumbai recently, to decide on the critical issues involving content regulation and governance within the Industry. In a meeting attended by over 30 top executives representing national and regional channels, a decision has been taken to form an ‘alternative standards’ organisation called the News Broadcasters Federation Authority, aiming to bring in “more transparent self-regulation on content”. More than 50 news channels have come together to create a charter and a governance board for NBF.

     

    The new news industry trade body has decided to open-up memberships for TV channels and broadcasters from across India, starting November 1. Another key decision taken by the NBF is that its upcoming secretariat will be based out of the Delhi.

     

    Like the news Broadcasters Association, NBF also aims to have a self-regulatory body – the ‘News Broadcasters Federation Authority’, which will create new standards for news broadcasting and address any violation through a committee of editors from within the federation. The self-regulation mechanism will be led by a Chairman, and four independent eminent persons, and another four editors.

     

    According to a communique issued by the NBF, a structured committee on distribution will be formed in order to increase the consumption of news and expand the viewership of member companies both within India and outside. “A Committee on Finance will also be formed to help member companies to strengthen liquidity through technology-driven solutions. NBF will also explore setting up other committees as and when the need arises.”

     

     

  • Leading national and regional broadcasters who have formed the News Broadcasters Federation are scheduled to meeting in Mumbai today (Oct 21)

    News Broadcasters Federations to meet today in Mumbai

    By A Correspondent

     

    Leading national and regional broadcasters who have formed the News Broadcasters Federation are scheduled to meeting in Mumbai today (Oct 21).

     

    In its first meeting since the announcement a few months ago, the NBF members are slated to chart out modalities and representation of the body.

     

    Said a spokesperson of the association: “When the NBF meets today, it will be the first time in Indian television history, that representatives of every region in India will truly be represented and present at a single platform, which stands at the core of NBF’s objective.”