MxMIndia

Tag: Times Now

  • While individual journalists showed remarkable courage across platforms and owners, the worst slip-sliding sycophancy came from the big names, writes Ranjona Banerji

    2019 saw Complete Polarisation of Indian Society

     

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    Cries of “Media go back” or “Godi Media go back” have faced members of our tribe who have arrived to cover the anti-CAA-NRC-NPR protests across India. The media is often the brunt of anger and worse, during the course of its duties. Usually this anger comes from officials, authoritarian rulers, puppets of the state, political party functionaries or goons. Usually, when people protest against government atrocities, the media is seen as an ally. Someone to be relied on to help, spread the word, speak to power when power does not listen.

    For members of the public to turn on the media in their hour of need is nothing but tragic. For some sections of the Indian media, this is the sad note on which 2019 has ended. With them being called “Godi”, or to translate the idiom, “sitting in the lap of those in power”, with a rhyming twist on the prime minister’s surname.

    The end of 2019 is marked by the most complete polarisation of Indian society since the 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid, since the 2014 majority government of Modi and friends and the 2019 majority government of Modi and Shah. The Citizenship Amendment Act, the National Register of Citizens and the National Population Register between the three of these efforts of the Modi-Shah government have spilt India. But what have they done for the media?

    Funnily enough, and in spite of the “Godi media” or even “modia” chants by protestors, some sections of the media have been less supplicant to the powers that be than one might think. I was shocked to see that even Times Now, which usually competes with Republic TV, ANI and PIB as a government publicist, found itself compelled to correct the “spiritual” celebrity guru Sadhguru Vasudev on his “interpretations” of the CAA-NRC-NPR. This is so against the grain that many have shrugged it off without trying to analyse what just happened. I was doubly surprised because I was under the possibly false impression that Vasudev was the current patron “guru” of the Bennett Coleman group, having taken over from or ousted the earlier incumbent, Double Sri.

    It is another matter that so many sections of the media found it perfectly normal for the Prime Minister of India to recommend via a tweet the cud-chewing ruminations of Vasudev and then call them “lucid”, when even Times Now found about six errors within the first five minutes. And indeed, that Vasudev starts by saying he has not read the actual acts or proposals.

    But one cannot blame either Modi or Vasudev. Modi has gone largely unchallenged by most of the media since 2013. And even after the horrors of demonetisation and the subsequent collapse of the economy, of our various foreign affairs disasters, of the signal lack of governance in every sector, the media has remained compliant. Whatever little shoots of courage sprung up in the 2019 election campaign died out with the May 2019 return to power.

    It is matter of shame and amusement that for some sections of the media, the various parties which lost the general election are still held responsible for the state of India today. I still haven’t understood whether this comes from extreme love or total hatred.

    It is only between the Maharashtra elections and the students’ protests that we have seen signs of media courage.

    However, I must make some distinctions here. Individual journalists across India have shown remarkable courage across platforms and owners. The worst slip-sliding sycophancy comes from the big names. They are unable to criticise without adding riders. And that is no longer a sign of “objectivity”; it is a sign of cowardice.

    English language newspapers like The Telegraph, The Hindu, increasingly The Deccan Herald, the Deccan Chronicle, Asian Age, Business Standard to some extent, remain at the forefront of challenging those in power, this praise comes with caveats for all. Some allow more variety on their opinion pages like LiveMint. The Indian Express has become a sore disappointment. The Times of India? Well, it depends on which part of the country it is based in. Hindustan Times, hmm. The international media has been strident in its criticism. When it comes to news channels, it is still NDTV which is seen as the sole reliable, non-publicity mouthpiece of the Modi-Shah government. Some like CNN News18 or India Today TV have their moments of freedom from government PR, but they are few and far between. The rest are largely sucker-uppers. When they change, you know Olympus has fallen!

    Websites like the Wire, Scroll, Quint, Catch, NewsMinute, and a whole bunch of local news sites from Kashmir to Kochi fill in where the mainstream media fails. And this remains the main media battleground, much as so many in print or TV refuse to accept it. All those who thought citizen journalism and blogs could bring them into the 21st century ought to have realised by now that there’s no substitute for fact-finding and groundwork. Which is why AltNews, Boom and all the other fact-checking websites remain the most trustworthy.

    The last shout out has to be all the young and brave reporters, deskies, producers who follow, report, track and edit the first drafts of history being made, in spite of the tremendous pressures from their seniors, their owners, the public. These are the only hope as long as they stay this way and learn this simple lesson: Those glamorous fence-sitters? History will not remember them well.

    On that note, Happy New Year and see you on the other side!

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She is also Consulting Editor, MxMIndia. Her views here are personal

     

     

  • Ranjona Banerji comments on Arnab Goswami's mega-tantrum against director Aparna Sen on Republic which was followed by protégé Navika Kumar and successor Rahul Shivshankar on Times Now

    Journalism or Calibrated Outrage?

     

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    A supposed meltdown on Republic TV by famous TV anchor Arnab Goswami is doing the social media rounds. In the clip, Goswami is on a massive rant against film director Aparna Sen for being a signatory to an open letter asking the prime minister to do something to stop mob lynchings and religious violence in India.

    Goswami accuses Sen of trying to destroy India among other such claims, does not allow her to speak and carries on with what appears to be a mega-tantrum.

    However, suppose it is not a meltdown? Suppose this is the television that Goswami has found suits his audience the best? It is after all a style that he honed while on Times Now. And now he has perfected it. The tough guy journalist who will save his country from secular, compassionate, liberal intellectuals, that anti-national constituency that wants to rip India apart by not kowtowing to the majority religion and the government in power.

    It is therefore more than likely that this is manufactured and carefully calibrated outrage. It serves two purposes: it tells the BJP that Goswami remains one of theirs no matter what, and that there is no extent of illogicality and non-journalism that he will not go to support them. And it tells his audience that he remains what he is: a mighty show pony who will provide great entertainment every night regardless of the consequences and/or credibility.

    The journalism, remember, stopped while Goswami was at Times Now and therefore could not shift to Republic TV.

    The experiment that he started at his last job has taken fruit. At Times Now, his protégé Navika Kumar and his successor Rahul Shivshankar, carry on with Goswami’s toxic agenda, at times trying to outdo him. For all the great “fight” that Bennett Coleman had with Goswami when he quit, it is telling how they carried on with the form of non-journalism that he began. They replaced him with a wannabe clone which is I suppose a sort of compliment.

    Shivshankar on Thursday night (July 25) was in good “defend my masters” mode while he questioned panellists about why everyone wanted to save India’s religious minorities, but no one wanted to save Hindus. Trying to save Hindus is some Times Now hashtag on social media. The subject of the debate was the Triple Talaq Bill and the criminalisation of those Muslim men who use instant divorce as a way to abandon their wives. I made a huge mistake here and genuinely thought Shivshankar was going to ask why no one wanted to save women. I realised within second of course that I was on the wrong track.

    Shivshankar put me right and if one extrapolates from his sycophantic and illogical stance, then no one in the government is interested in the women. Of course, if they were, criminalisation would play no part in this bill but that’s another story.

    The capitulation of the media to the ruling BJP and its agenda is also clear, even without the melodramatics of Goswami or the poor seconds of Shivshankar. The very fact that the Right to Information Act was amended so easily is testament to our cowardice. Journalists – real ones, I mean, not these television snake oil salespeople – are those who will suffer the most as an authoritarian government exercises its muscle power in Parliament to protect itself.

    Do we care?

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She is also Consulting Editor, MxMIndia. Her views here are personal

     

  • For India’s future to be robust, the media has to be even more robust, writes Ranjona Banerji

    Sound, fury & graphics on Results TV

     

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    One thing one has to say for our beloved news channels is that they do not let us down. You are guaranteed a proper Indian jatra-tamasha when it comes to election results coverage. Your TV screen is covered with colours, faces, numbers, words all competing for attention. Graphics run around everywhere, and they change faster than a pulsar can rotate on its own axis – 17 times in one second, I believe in the case of one.

    I have not understood until today where these channels get their figures from because every channel gets different numbers on leads and trends! As you switch from one to the other, the same party can win between 283 and 291 in the space of eight channels and 10 seconds. And the best for me is that none of them tally with the Election Commission’s results website.

    Aah, well. Having been forced to run through these channels thanks to this column, I found that surprise surprise, the least scary and most readable graphics were on India Today, although once people started speaking you had to run for cover. The easiest to watch was Mirror Now with Faye D’Souza providing a friendly face and personable presence to viewers. The most “sound and fury”, as expected, was on Times Now, with strong competition between Rahul Shivshankar and Navika Kumar as to who could outshout the other (the guests had to try really hard here).

    CNNNews18 was less obnoxious than I thought it would be. NewsX was more watchable than I had assumed, although there were too many faces on the screen. Wion was boring by comparison but less frenetic. Tiranga TV was all right. The most amusing was Republic TV because from what I could understand, Arnab Goswami speaks mainly in Hindi now. NDTV remains the most reliable and generally un-screechy. I missed Dorab Sopariwala, usually a regular with Dr Prannoy Roy, but perhaps I watched at the wrong times?

    Most news channels of course, true to type, were overjoyed at the projected massive mandate for Narendra Modi and the BJP. (How close the exit polls, otherwise known as pre-voting surveys, were to the actual results, we shall discuss in another column.) So therefore, no chance of expecting much journalism from the usual suspects into the next five years.

    The twin concepts of showing truth to power, of holding a government accountable for its policies and actions, will once again fall to a smattering of newspapers and news sites and a couple of news channels. I sincerely hope that I am wrong. But, judging from the last five years and the looks of utter triumphant joy on the faces of anchors like Rahul Shivshankar, Navika Kumar, Rahul Kanwal at a BJP win, to name just three of the usual suspects, we have to be prepared for more of the same.

    For the rest, the battle is on. We must be prepared for a rise in bigotry and notwithstanding the Sensex and Nifty rises of May 23, India’s economic situation remains precarious. For India’s future to be robust, India’ democratic institutions which includes the media has to be even more robust. Here’s our test. I can guarantee now, unless a huge reckoning happens, we are going to fail again.

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She is also Consulting Editor, MxMIndia. Her views here are personal

  • It is scheduled to be held on May 22 in New York

    Times Now announces inaugural India International Summit

    By A Correspondent

     

    Times Now has announced the first edition of Times Now India International Summit at New York on May 22.

     

    Steering this edition’s theme, ‘Impact of election results on India’s $ 5trillion Agenda’, the summit will see influential leaders deliberate upon the economic and political outcome of the Indian elections.

     

    Commenting on the first edition of India International Summit, Nikhil Gandhi, President – Revenue, Times Network said: “Times Now India International Summit is our endeavour to build an influential platform to engage and converse with the NRI community across the continents, enabling a global perspective on India. Leading with the New York edition, the summit comes at an opportune time where every Indian across the globe anticipates the impact of Lok Sabha 2019 results. Understanding and evaluating the outcome of the election, India International Summit empowers NRIs to build on India’s enviable growth agenda”.

     

     

  • While India gets set for the biggest democratic event, 36.67 per cent voters unaware about the criminal records of the candidates

    Times Now announces ‘Swachh Neta’ voter-welfare initiative

    By A Correspondent

     

    In the lead to the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, Times Now has announced ‘Swachh Neta: Mission for Clean Politics’, with an aim to educate and empower the citizens to make an informed voting decision.

     

    Said MK Anand, MD & CEO, Times Network: “Times Now actively champions initiatives that lead to systemic reform. Our pursuit to effect meaningful change has been aptly captured in our brand promise – ‘Action Begins Here’, that we try to live up to. Swachh Neta comes at an opportune time when transparency and accountability in the political and electoral system of the country is the need of the hour. Through this endeavour we want to empower our viewers to bring positive change through informed and well researched voting.”

     

     

  • Do our news channels really care to highlight RBI's latest consumer confidence survey finding that 48% of respondents in six Indian cities feel that the economic situation in the country has worsened compared to a year ago, asks Ranjona Banerji

    Ranjona Banerji: Jab Anchor Bhi Kabhi Journalist Thi & other soaps our “news” channels can run

    By Ranjona Banerji

    The Reserve Bank of India’s latest consumer confidence survey finds that 48 per cent of respondents in six Indian cities feel that the economic situation in the country has worsened compared to a year ago.

    However, it is more than likely that this information is interesting to no one who controls the news cycle. There’s Anand Narasimhan of Times Now claiming that Prakash Ambedkar of all people has threatened him. This threat includes, apparently, a statement by Ambedkar that the Modi government has only another six months to go, which is in some sense a real threat to the anchors of “news channels” like Times Now.

    On the other side, well-known TV anchor Barkha Dutt says she and her family have received death threats. Will Times Now be doing a whole evening’s show in support of Dutt?

    The biggest problem for India is of course that former president Pranab Mukherjee addressed some RSS convocation. Actually, that is not the biggest problem but it must be the biggest perceivable problem. We will undoubtedly hear and see lots of comment on this. The connection between the RSS’s Hindutva agenda and the murder of Gauri Lankesh by Hindu supremacists will be made in a tenuous manner while there will be much handwringing about Mukherjee’s speech, should he have gone there, should he have made it, blaming liberals, and of course, the usual lies that will emerge from rightwing troll accounts.

    Vedanta, Thoothkudi, the arrest of Dalits in the Bhima-Koregaon case, the collapsing economy… all will be forgotten. Because, as a side dish, we have some masturbation scene in a Hindi film which denotes the end of India’s cultural superiority as we see it or some such nonsense.

    But all this is wisdom from far away. Am on holiday in Great Britain where media obsessions and trends are quite different. Not always any better perhaps, but different. For all of last week, the BBC has been obsessed with the reopening of the Jeremy Thorpe case. A charismatic politician accused of hiring a hitman to kill his homosexual lover Norman Scott in 1975. The unfortunate casualty was Scott’s dog Rinka, who was shot but Scott was saved because the hitman’s gun jammed. Thorpe stood trial but was acquitted. He died in 2014. The case was closed in 2017. Now evidence emerges that the suspect, thought to be dead, maybe alive.

    However, after watching the ceaseless coverage of the case past and present, you began to wonder whether the news was about the case and Thorpe or about the BBC itself. Because at the end of every news bit, there would be a reminder to viewers to watch the BBC Four drama, Thorpe: A Very English Drama, starring Hugh Grant. So was the news just an advertisement for the drama series or was the drama series an innocent off-shoot of the news?

    Is there an opportunity here for our intrepid “news” channels and their endless drama on prime time “debates”? Akshay Kumar stars as Anand Narasimhan in the Times Now soap, “Are Liberals Trying to Finish Times Now”? Suneil Shetty plays Rahul Shivshankar in the drama, “Hard Fact: There is No More News on this Channel. And, will Smriti Irani come out of ministerhood to star as Navika Kumar in the special series, “Jab Anchor Bhi Kabhi Journalist Thi”?

    Meanwhile, in Republic TV Land, Rajnikanth in and as “Arnab Goswami Ab Tak Sab Se Gussa”?

    **

    And in one wonderful moment of news excitement winning over news fact, the BBC informed us last week that the weather was so bad, that one woman had to be rescued when her car stalled in a puddle! Nostalgia fans will find this scene replayed now as the monsoon hits Mumbai badly and news channels will run to Milan Subway to film the puddles there. For those who came in late, Milan Subway 1) Has a flyover above it 2) Is below road level so will flood if a cup of coffee spills.

    On that note, coffee time, see you next week!

     

    Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She is also Consulting Editor, MxMIndia. The views here are personal

     

  • In a freewheeling interview, the Republic TV promoter and editor-in-chief talks how the year-long journey has been and responds to some charges levelled at his style of journalism

    One year on: Arnab Goswami Unplugged

     

     

    On May 6 last year, Arnab Goswami launched Republic TV, decidedly the most high profile media launch that we’ve seen in the last decade, post-Colors in the general entertainment space and in 2005 with the launch of the now-beleaguered DNA newspaper. The channel has been dominating the ratings roster from Week 1 and reports a big success in terms of ratings and revenues. But the year-long journey has seen its share of controversies, which in fact started a few months before launch. The launch of Republic got at least two competitors to lead a boycott of BARC television ratings, and then there were court cases which of course Goswami’s legal advisors defended with success. However, there are charges of a BJP bias that have been raised by many (including by MxMIndia columnists) and that the promoter and editor-in-chief of the channel doesn’t allow his guests to speak much.

    On Saturday, the day Republic TV completed a year of operations, Arnab Goswami took some time off to have a freewheeling conversation with Pradyuman Maheshwari. Read on… (Editor’s Alert: this interview is extra-long. Some 6000 words. So perhaps you should get yourself a coffee or chai, sit back and enjoy!)

     

    One year on, how has the Republic TV journey been?

    It’s been a very good journey. We achieved everything we set out to achieve. Viewership is high, revenues are good, people are happy. We are on the verge of expanding more.  We feel happy because we are ready to do new things and that’s what keeps any organisation going. About three to four months back, we realised that we have achieved what we would have wanted to achieve in two years, and so we sat down and discussed ourselves and realised that we are now ready to do new things. As we finished our first year, we are ready to do more.  Now the question is to identify what is that?

    Are you satisfied as a businessman? Are you satisfied as an editor?

    See, I am not a businessman, I run a business but I am not a businessman. I am the editor-in-chief of Republic. I have a titular title of managing director which I don’t use.

    Okay, so are you happy as a promoter?

    As a promoter, I am supremely happy. Our shareholders are supremely happy. We have added value to this business. We have got the highest viewership in our genre and continue to do so, and we are innovating and getting into new areas, building new verticals. So, yes, as a promoter I have no reason to be unhappy in fact I have every reason to be happy.

    How’s the financial bottomline?

    I think Vikas [Khanchandani, the CEO] will tell you more, but on a cash flow basis, we broke even in the first month. And we’ve done better every month after that.

    To be the No 1 News channel as per BARC through the year is phenomenal. Did it require pots of money to be invested?

    No, I think we were much smarter and we had experience and knowledge of the television news business and my own learning has been that you win by being smart and playing the game well rather than trying push your way through and that’s where we did well.

    We were pirouetting around in the first few weeks before our launch and we were pirouetting around for the first few months later and even today we are pirouetting around the sense that nobody can quite predict what we will do next. And that unpredictability of our approach which is not just restricted to our editorial stance, the stories you suddenly break at 6 o’clock or the debate you throw out at them  but it’s also got to do much with our approach on business and our approach on distribution and our approach on going into international markets . The great thing is that in Republic decisions are taken in seconds. You ask any of the Top 20 or 30 people in the organisation when was the last time they have emailed anyone, they will look at you with their jaws dropping. We don’t email anyone. So, our ability to take fast decisions, quickly take calculated risks both on the editorial and business side and every side, makes us a smart operator. I think that is one of the greatest reasons for our success.

    I know it’s an unfair thing to ask, but if you have to score Republic TV’s launch year from 1 to 10, what would you say it is? In terms of how the channel has done?

    Well, I think I will put us at an 8 on 10. Because anyone who gives themselves 10 on 10 is stupid. Either the person is stupid or the person  is trying to make himself or herself happy by giving a 10 on 10

    So I never  give myself a 10 on 10. I give myself 8 on 10 because I would still say there are some areas in news that I will like to do. Some formats I have not been able to do. I watch and consume a lot of television I’m aware of stuff I can do if I get a little bit of time and that is what I want to do now.

    Even in terms of business we did fantastically well. Vikas and I both agree that there areas were we need to get into not just because we want to throw more money but because we feel we need to be there. So, we have opened up two three verticals from the last few months and there is the whole digital thing throw up again. So there are certain incomplete areas but you can look at it this way: we have done so much in one year but we got a lot more to do ,if I had done that maybe I’d give  myself two extra points.

    What would you say would be your highest and lowest points of the year?

    Highest point of the year was yesterday [Friday, May 4[, because when I saw the ratings, we saw that we had a 11% lead over the No 2 channel. And that’s incredible. On an all-India all-time slots basis and when you look  at a primetime, my slots , like when you are looking at 9 o’clock , there is a 30% gap. That for me is very satisfying. So, we were actually very kicked yesterday in the newsroom when we saw those numbers, big smiles all around because people have realised that as we are entering Week 52, we are becoming stronger than ever. This was a resounding answer for all those who were stunned with our first two-three weeks and  fought us saying flash in the pan.

    And your lowest point?

    I don’t have low points because my low points don’t last.

    Something you felt sad about in the last year?

    I don’t feel low about it, so I won’t use the word low point. But I must say that the point when I was baffled was the way in which some news organisations and some old media, legacy media organisations fought me. They ganged up, they used industry bodies. They got together; they tried to throw us out. They tried to tell us: why are you here? And they came together may be out of their insecurity or just the inability to react or may be because simply they underestimated us.

    Yeah, but…

    So, let me complete. When they did that for a period of time, I was trying to study their thinking and I did not get a clear answer beyond the fact that they did not want us there. Now that made us sure that want to be there even more… that gave us greater resolve. But it is a lesson for the industry… that you can’t form a cozy club especially not in the news industry and try and throw someone who wants to enter with a new team into the business. So I was baffled at that time, but I did not respond beyond a week or two, because I have been in this business long enough to know that negativity is a self-destructive emotion. And there is so much negativity about us when we started, it’s not a …

    So the offensive from competitors helped build your resolve to counter them despite all odds?

    Oh, yes, I mean how foolish can you be. That you go and file cases on me and pay tons of money to lawyers to file stupid cases on me, you take our biggest exclusive which we have broken on stories like cry babies, go out there and say no that story was mine and then foolishly in an act of complete desperation, go to Azad Maidan police station and file a police case against me.

    When you see mature adults behave like this, you don’t know whether to laugh or cry. My resolve does not have to be propelled by these things but it baffled me. It was so utterly childish, that it just baffled me. It continues to baffle me even today. Whatever may have been their motivation or reasons, it baffles me even now why they behaved like that.

    But on that specific expose about Shashi Tharoor, some of the data you were sitting on from Times Now. I remember tweeting about it when you broke the story. So since the info was with the reporter from the organisation that she worked for previously, she shouldn’t have used it, right?

    No, that was completely wrong because this was a private conversation that the reporter had with the source and the news was never archived with the organisation.

    The private conversation was recorded?

    Reporters keep private conversations. It was a damn good story.

    Yes, it was.

    Let me tell you this: it was a damn good story, Lalu was a damn good story , the expose on the ISIS terrorists was a damn good story. All of these were damn good stories. And it’s also cry baby, going around saying no, these stories are ours, they should stop crying. In fact I think they really stop crying now. They have been crying for a year!

    Okay, let’s move on. There is a sense that a fair amount of money has been put into distribution in order to generate your high viewership numbers. Don’t you think the money should actually go into content rather than distribution?

    But we don’t have a choice. We follow the trend that is there in the market. But we are not spending anything abnormally, more than anyone else. We are just spending what is there in the market. But now whether distribution should take that kind of spend is the question which we all have to ask ourselves. But right now Republic does not have a choice or nobody does.

    I remember hearing that you would track BARC numbers even before you launched the channel. How influenced are you by ratings? Do you check if the numbers go up every time there is a discussion on Pakistan or on Nationalism… how much are you influenced by viewership data?

    Not to that specific degree you are mentioning today but may be five years or six years earlier in my career, I would do the level of micro analysis on subjects etc.  But now the new Bio-News data which BARC has brought out is interesting but frankly I haven’t gone through the detail of that yet. But I think it’s a good move by BARC.

    I have historically been known to study data more than other editors because I understand numbers better than any other editor. My entire background in sociology and socio-anthropology and statistics makes me obsessed with numbers. So I micro-analyse numbers and segments and I have my own numerical methods of collating data and my method of collating data are of taking different time parts indexing it in my own way and drawing some coefficients which I can use editorially.

    I have been doing this for a long time and therefore I take a lot of raw data from our people, they present me their analysis and then I do my own analysis out of it. I can safely predict to some extent the impact of certain kinds of programming on ratings.  I believe that my team and I understand numbers better and understanding the arithmetic of ratings and viewership is actually a good thing.

    Do you think if there would have been no ratings or advertising wasn’t so dependent on ratings, your content mix would’ve been different?

    No.

    Would your news selection be different?

    No. Absolutely not. We are in the business of relevance and I know where that question is coming from where there are certain channels which don’t get viewership and then they go around saying but we are still relevant and the question is nobody is watching. How are you relevant? Are you relevant only to yourself? So I think, I would always want to be relevant and to be relevant I must be watched.

    What you are asking is if your commercials are not indexed to your viewership, would you be relevant in any different way? No, because I will still be targeting the same audience… the same x, y, z. So if I need you to watch me and whether or not you got a Peoplemeter in your house, I will do the same See, there are two things which work in our business: one is your need to be relevant and watched and the other is to make impactful change in the way that you think the change should be done. It’s a mix of these. I don’t think there would be any difference in our approach to our news. We would have the same values and the same principles.

    You mentioned earlier that you are now ready to look at two or three things going forward. As you complete your 52nd week and embark on your second year, what are the few things that you are plan on doing? Are you looking at Hindi at all? You have a sub-brand called Republic Bharat?

    Yes.

    Is Hindi channel on the cards?

    Well, you know, you can ask Vikas this and others, but every week, every day, we get calls from the leading Hindi channels, top business executives calling our office to find out when Republic is launching a Hindi channel. I think they anticipate the kind of tsunami that we did in English or at least a mini-tsunami when we enter in Hindi and therefore the thought of Hindi is in our mind but when, how, to what extent etc is something, that we have to work out. We are in no hurry to do anything in Hindi as of now and I see no need no immediate imperative on my side to get into Hindi immediately.  This is the normal talk that happens in the market…

    Would you like it to happen before the elections?

    No. I wouldn’t predicate or link anything to an election at all. Everything has to be driven by the logic of entering into that genre. You can’t link logic to an election. Anybody in our industry who does things based on political highs and lows is playing a very short-term game. I am appalled at the manner in which people decide to launch channels in the states that are going to the elections, because I find that utterly opportunistic because you expect a certain amount of cash flow during elections to launch a channel. You should launch a channel when you feel you can do something good for the people, when you have stories, when you feel convinced that you can bring in a difference in the market. Why should you launch a channel when there is an election? It makes no sense to me.

    What about digital? Your digital foray was announced a few months back, but some how that has not taken off in the big way as you may have wanted to?

    Yes, we are testing waters on digital. If you look at the pure numbers, we have done well. We have a very numbers million uniques and we have a very good number of page views. I agree with you that, that’s not the only index in digital.

    Let me put it in this way, our exact strategy, what we want to do, cannot be driven by the old ways of measuring the business because the old ways of measuring the business will die very soon. When we want to do video, how we want to get content, how content is going to differentiate and how you carve it out into unique identity is something that we have done some serious work on. So, while it may appear to you that we did a mega-launch around January and February and then sort of, we have gone slower in last couple of months, that’s not the case. In the last couple of months, we have been finishing the financial year and Vikas and me are working on multiple things.

    I also want to tell you, we have got a very large digital team, we have got a full tech hub that we have set up that is working independently in Bengaluru. We have opened a brand new office in Bengaluru so there’s work happening, We’ve expanded our product teams. We hired about 10 new people, pure tech guys… when you are doing something for the long-term, you can’t depend on somebody else’s technology. So we have taken the move, we’re not trying to circumvent that process, we are trying to build our own tech base. That takes time. Along with it, we have expanded our content team, we have expanded our product teams and we have opened sales offices on digital in three cities. And we have a new sales head.

    New Sales Head overall?

    For digital. Varun [Mohan] came in.

    Jay, the person who  was heading digital has moved on?

    Jay was more for the broadcast tech business.

    One of the things said is that while over the last one year the channel has done well in terms of numbers and salience and is a force to reckon with, there have been a quiet few people who have moved on – anchors, some of  the faces who have on camera? Would you say that attrition has been high?

    I would disagree with you. Our attrition overall is the lowest in the industry. Attrition in the organisation and editorial and business is lowest in the industry. We have fantastic retention rates.  When we launched, as it happens, people come from different channels.

    You mean they couldn’t adjust to your work requirements?

    When we see this kind of aggression in news gathering or I would say the fast-paced newsroom, if someone were to come from a CNN-IBN or NDTV or India Today or Times Now after I left and say that you need to respond to a story in five minutes for which you have half an hour there , that you need to get graphics in three seconds, when you got 30 minutes there and then you need to relate in a different way to  promos and graphics and everyone. So people can get stumped with the pace but having accepted that only the fittest survive in every business. In the early one or two months when we launched, a lot of people said I will work in slightly slower-paced way, and hence we had one or two people and one or two anchors going back to the legacy organisations but most of them stayed on. By the way, there’s been almost no top -level attrition, which is also fantastic.

    One of the charges, as Rajat Sharma would say on ‘Aap Ki Adalat’: aap pe ilzaam hai ki Republic TV is too biased towards the BJP? Would you like to respond to that charge?

    I think I should. While Kathua happened or Unnao happened, none of the sort of pro-Congress channels, let me put it this way…

    Yes, you did go after the Haryana Chief Minister too…

    Ram Rahim, I will give you a straight answer to this question: there is no substance in that allegation at all. If there has been someone who has been tremendously tough on the BJP on issues, it has been Republic. We have gone after the BJP government, whether it is Yogi Adityanath, whether it is the central government, whether it is the top BJP leadership in case of Unnao and Kathua to the extent to that there was a clip which went viral that there was a big BJP rally and they kept taking our name with ministers who quit and they said if you think you are some kind of a wrestler come and wrestle with us and they were taking my name and were attacking us. Our reporters have been attacked by people from all political parties in the last one year.  This accusation is completely false and I think over the last few months when people have seen our coverage they have seen that this is false propaganda started by some of those who would not compete with us in first couple of months. Now I know that the news we do and when Yogi Adityanath recently, I think this was last week in…

    When he trivialized…

    When he took on the people who had been the victims of a train accident… We did entire shows on it. Therefore we shoot from the hip, we don’t compromise, our essential rule is no Congi, no Sanghi , no compromise.  I can share with you our line which we have for our one-year campaign: No Left, No Right, No Compromise.

    Hmmm

    Allow me to complete. We have taken each political party on for whatever it needs to be taken on for issues. Now, there cannot be any permanent position a news organisation can have. I know now there are certain organisations in this country which say let’s have two channels. Let one channel be pro-BJP and another be pro-Congress. It is a crying shame that leading media organisations of this country are falsifying news in this manner. By having one channel say we will be pro-BJP and another channel will bash BJP. That’s complete falsehood. To try and maintain that kind of editorial line is a shame. Which means you are essentially instructing editors on what line they have to take. Are you playing a game?  Is it a game you are playing or you are presenting the news? I have problems with permanent positioning.  I think a news organisation should take on people depending on issues and therefore recently when we did an interview with Amit Shah.

    Yes.

    We were the only people who asked even Mr Amit Shah straight questions, we don’t do candyfloss interviews. If you look at all the interviews that have been done with Mr Amit Shah or Mr Modi or the others, we have never done a candyfloss interview. I have never done a candyfloss interview in my life. But you will have seen other people do that. We are above board and we will be very straight on our interviews.

    But you don’t take on Narendra Modi as much as you take on others… say Rahul Gandhi? For instance, Narendra Modi has been quiet on quite a a few things.

    I think that’s also completely incorrect because when Kathua happened, I started my show by saying that if Mr Narendra Modi does not respond to this, he will have a problem. He should pick up the phone and tell Mehbooba Mufti that these two ministers should be sacked and that was said two days before the resignations happened.  Not that we are taking any credit for it. We are the only channel that has questioned Mr Modi, Mr Amit Shah and Mr Rahul Gandhi. I am not responsible if Mr Rahul Gandhi regularly goes and makes a fool of himself on many public platforms. We are not responsible for Rahul Gandhi’s public behaviour. So, I think this is all a figment of someone’s imagination.

    So are you happy to take on the BJP whenever needed?

    Of course, whenever or wherever it is required on issues.

    And even Prime Minister Narendra Modi?

    Whenever and wherever it is required on issues. I am not among those people who wake up in the morning and say okay for the next six months I will be anti-Narendra Modi, and after two months I will be pro-Narendra Modi depending on which side my bread is buttered.  I can’t do that.

    One of the other charges against Republic and against you is that there is no second line that has been established?  That Brand Arnab is bigger than Brand Republic? I asked you this question when you launched and you had then said you were going to be on air through the year. And you have actually been on the air since you launched. But you are also a promoter now. Don’t you think the channel is too dependent on you?

    Yes. You are correct. There is no denying it. Now, however let me present a counter-prospective. First of all I am not confronting you on this question. There are two or three aspects in running an organisation. Let me give you an organisational answer. There is a business side, there is a side of running a channel, there is distribution side and there is a finance side. Satisfaction number one as you can check this with Vikas, we have the most independent business team.

    Okay

    I feel very happy that the first thing I have done is that as a promoter of an organisation I have completely bequeathed the running of Republic, Republic World, Republic extension and business to Vikas.  And with Vikas and Mr Sundaram on the financial side and under Vikash to Priya on distribution and the international extension side. I speak to them only when necessary and I feel very happy they speak to me when only necessary. It is phenomenally satisfying for me to see that I have such a delightfully independent and nimble business team.  They give me lot of independence that I am very grateful to them for allowing me this space that I need on for my editorial. One part.

    And now you got Dr Bhaskar Das?

    Yes. Bhaskar will be helping us in extensions of our business. He is a great guy, I have known him for 20 years and I feel privileged that people like him are associated with us.  The second part is this that, I must say I am truly proud of Vikas. He is like a brother to me in this. We get along famously. You can’t run a business that grown to this size 400 people etc till you really have got that part sorted out. Now comes the editorial side. On the editorial side, with the entire sort of running of the channel, operations etc, the production side on the programming side, I have bequeathed it to Charu [Thakur], who is our chief executive producer and she has done a great job. So running of the channel will continue regardless of this. Now comes to the aspect and we have got a great editorial team.  Samya, Niranjan, Tanvi, Abhishek in Delhi. I don’t want to give individual names but we got a great team.

    Rhythm, how can one forget a name like that.

    Yes, Rhythm, Prema, Aishwarya so we built a strong line of editorial people with Samya and Niranjan and Tanvi playing a great role on the news desk and running the editorial operations here in Mumbai and in Delhi. I feel very happy about that. Now comes to your question on the perception part of the faces, so today if you look at it in terms of numbers you will find that we are ahead of Times Now cleanly on most weeks on the 8 o’clock slot.

    Achcha

    They’ve put their present editor on the 8 o’clock slot but my anchors – whether it is Shivani , Rhythm, Sakal would beat their editor hollow in the 8 o’clock slot and we thrash them in the 9 o’clock slot. So, we are way ahead of Times Now on most weeks at 8 o’clock. At 7 O’clock too, we are ahead, 6 o’clock most of the weeks, we are ahead… mornings we are ahead. This proves that in numbers, who they categorise as their top editors, anchors are all getting thrashed in their respective slots.

    But…

    Which means my anchors are more watched than their top-most anchors. Which means in terms of viewership, the audiences have already accepted our anchors as more credible, more watched, more interesting and more engaging than their topmost editors. This is across the board. If you were to put even the top anchor of India Today or any other channel vis-a-vis my anchor, our anchors are way ahead of them in terms of viewership and in terms of acceptance. Therefore, I have achieved Part Two, that our viewership of our anchors are better. Now in terms of perceptions, I think that there always be a comparison and I would want do things for our anchors and our reporters to be able to strengthen them and their presence in terms of branding opportunity and promotion in next six months which we are getting into. Having done this, therefore in the next two-three months I would have been able to become the strength and not the weakness of Republic.

    But there is no clear second-in-command. What if you have a bad throat or are not able to come on air at 9 o’clock. Will it not impact your primetime performance and viewership numbers?

    I will be taking a week’s holidays this summer and we will put up other anchors and I tell you they will do better than any other anchor at 9 pm.

    If your competition comes to know that you are taking a week’s holiday…

    (laughs) I once went to Orange County with my family in the hills and I won’t mention the name but one of the promoters of another media group, this is when I was with Times Now, called me and asked where I was for the last two days. I said I am at Orange County. Oh, you could have told me, we could have prepared a little better this week, the promoter said. But I think we will build a second line. See, I am confident today many of our reporters are better known than any other reporter. Our anchors will also be…

    I carried a story a couple of years back when you were with Times Now that ratings fell when you were on leave and the channel got impacted more than, say, a Colors got impacted when Kapil Sharma was off for a few weeks.

    I will just show you one line of my internal analysis (picks up a few sheets of papers from his desk). This is a weekly report I get. You will realise the level of details we go to. See this line of the content analysis: viewership without Arnab show. We create a hypothetical situation that should Arnab not be there, will Republic still be No 1? Please read it here and I am not making it up. In all combined terms, Republic TV is No 1 and without Arnab show’s market share, it is also at the No 1 position. So, this is with and without Arnab, we look at it both in terms of impression and market share.

    This is for non-peak hours of other channels. What if you look at 9 o’clock minus you on air?

    Listen: if you look at 9 o’clock of Times Now and others, we do much better. 9 o’clock on Times Now hardly gets a 10% share. So there is no comparison. Let me tell you: my 8 o’clock anchor will get three times the viewership of the Times Now 9 o’clock anchor. We feel we have the strongest anchors. We feel they put their weakest anchors at 9 o’clock or 10 o’clock with Times Now… India Today, they are putting their weakest anchor at 9 o’clock. If I would have been in their place, I would shuffle the team. They are giving us a walkover with their present bunch of anchors. They are giving us a walkover. The present bunch of anchors in all these channels – Times Now, NDTV, India Today and CNN-IBN are their weakest anchors.  May be they don’t want to come on at 9 o’clock.

    Ah, well.

    You can check it with the numbers. I think they are being unfair on their 7 o’clock anchors. They should put their 6 o’clock and 7 o’clock anchors at 9 o’clock.

    One more charge against you: you don’t allow people to speak. You don’t allow your guests to talk for more than 10 seconds if they don’t agree with your views!

    These people are so aggressive on my programme that in the last two weeks I have noticed that I have to beg to speak. They come with all guns blazing on my show and I think this is an unfair charge because the nature of the debate has become stronger and more polarised and it’s very difficult for me to compete with my guests sometimes.

    Do you check your blood pressure (BP) often enough?

    BP is fantastic. I had a health check-up three-four months back. Beautiful. I tell you, it’s like going to the spa.

    You find it therapeutic! A lot of your viewers complain their BP goes up watching your show!

    Therapeutic, it’s nice and it is like a work-out for me. After my show, I hang around the news desk for 20 minutes, generally gossip, talk to our people because I also feel that’s also therapeutic. The combination of the show plus chatting with my guests is the best time of the day from about 8 o’clock.  8 o’clock onwards I usually go into my zone. If I spend a little bit on my show I think I will do better.

    So what about allowing people to speak?

    I can’t let them speak more than what they do. They speak enough anyway. I feel I don’t have enough time to speak and what is this all business of letting people speak all about. The problem is also that very often other channel anchors have nothing to say. Have you thought about what their editorial contribution to the discussion is? No disrespect. But I believe here on Republic, we do more research, more ground work.  Our anchors are reporters. So they are better informed. You know the he-said-she-said thing does not work. I can keep saying ‘you speak, you speak’ and get along with it and say nothing but there would be no content in the show.

    You are very animated in your discussions, you move around your chair… how often do you change it?

    It has got no wheels. It’s fixed on the ground (smiles).  It’s great inside the studio. I have limited my appearances if you have noticed.  Going back to your charge: I am not breaking every big story myself anymore. So, when the last couple of big stories happened, I have not necessarily be in the studio and others have done phenomenally well. So I come on at 9 o’clock more often now and on my Sunday debate.

    Thanks for being candid, as always. And congratulations on a year of Republic TV.

    Thank you.

  • The Conclave will see prominent personalities from business and political spheres in attendance

    Times Now to host State Conclave in Karnataka

    By A Correspondent

     

    Ahead of the state elections, Times Now will be hosting the Karnataka NOW Conclave 2018 on May 4 in Bengaluru. Focusing on what the state must do to adapt to new social and political order to further secure its legacy, the Karnataka Now ‘Seize the Moment Conclave’ will have leading lights join the discourses and debates.

     

    The first session of the Conclave titled ‘Bengaluru rising – Back office to global innovator what will it take?’will be moderated by Chetan Bhagat and will see Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Mindtree co-founder Krishna Kumar Natarajan, Ganesh Krishnan of Growth Story and Co-Works founder Sidharth Menda deliberate on what it will take to push Bengaluru to become a leading name for innovation.

     

    The Conclave will also have DIG Roopa and BJPs Malavika Avinash discuss issues in the discussion titled ‘Misogyny and the metro-a case of double standards’. Concluding the Conclave will be Sri Sri Ravi Shankar who will deliver a special address on ‘What it means to be a Hindu’. Hmmm.

     

     

  • Ranjona Banerji and Shailesh Kapoor are outraged about the way Republic TV covered the Jignesh Mevani rally in Delhi

    Two views on Republic TV’s Mevani outrage

     

     

    Ranjona Banerji: You hate BJP? Republic TV will hate you!

    If it was not clear already, it should be now that Republic TV works only as a BJP or anti-anyone who is not BJP channel​, writes Ranjona Banerji​

     

    ​By Ranjona Banerji​

     

    How to play victim when something goes wrong is a singular talent of the government in power at the Centre. And the government’s most passionate admirers are no different. So with Republic TV when it decided that the youth rally organised by Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani and others in Delhi on January 9 was bound to be a failure.

    A series of tweets from the Republic TV handle hashtagged “Jignesh Flop Show” were sent out before the rally began. Other hashtags included “Congress sponsors violence” to go with a story on how Mevani turned “violent” with a Republic TV reporter. This clip was run on air and on social media in which Mevani pushes away a mike from his face. Other Republic TV outrage included why Mevani did not answer Republic TV’s questions.

    This anger was bolstered by another hashtag which claimed that the Congress Party had sponsored Mevani’s Press Club meeting. AltNews did some research into this: https://www.altnews.in/was-jignesh-mevanis-press-conference-congress-sponsored-as-alleged-by-republic-tv/

    Exactly why Mevani upsets Republic TV so much is not hard to understand. Mevani is not deferential to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which Republic TV has deemed is mandatory for everyone. An earlier interview between Mevani and a Republic TV reporter, available on Youtube, on this subject is quite funny. Mevani is a Dalit leader from Gujarat. And he – among others – is putting up a resistance to the BJP and Modi. Obviously, this is not permitted in Republic TV’s idea of a fascist state.

    Sadly for Republic TV, its brand of whatever it calls itself, does not get many takers within the journalistic fraternity. So there was not much sympathy for Mevani’s action of pushing away a microphone. In TV-land that is perhaps a crime punishable by law although in the days that I worked actively as a correspondent – print – people often refused to be interviewed. The world did not end as I recall nor did my sense of self get a huge drubbing by this rejection. Skins are a little thinner today or more likely if you can make a giant show of being victimised then you can create a sensation and get people to watch your channel. Is it worth adding that one wishes Republic TV was quite so diligent and militant with the various transgressions of the government in power, not just opposition politicians?

    So a “senior” editor of Republic TV, earlier with Times Now, also claimed that Mevani had refused to talk to him. He argued on Twitter that he had “12 years” of experience. 12 years! Now don’t laugh, in today’s terms he should have been editor-in-chief of the news channel by now, with due respect to the current editor-in-chief who has a few more years of experience and therefore should know better.

    But when this “senior” editor was asked questions himself by people at the Press Club in Delhi, he ran away as fast as he could. Sometimes experience does teach you that discretion is the better part of valour or perhaps he remembered that saying from being more recently out of school than some of us old codgers.

    Media website Newslaundry.com on the other hand found that Mevani was manhandled by Republic TV and its main competitor Times Now! https://www.newslaundry.com/2018/01/06/press-club-mevani-mobbed-tv-media-republic-times-now

    Meanwhile, while Republic TV was fulminating about the “anti-national” behaviour of the elected MLA from Gujarat and of people at the rally, here are two other versions of what happened. In the first, Prathistha Singh says that Republic TV defamed her husband, a bystander at the rally in Delhi, by encircling his face on TV and calling him a “goon”. Republic TV claims that the crowd turned on its reporter. This is what Singh has to say: http://www.jantakareporter.com/india/despicable-man-arnab-goswami-defamed-husband-channel/168210/ In the same programme, where “goons” were being called out, Arnab Goswami also focused on a reporter from ABP News who was there covering the event and called him a “goon”. ABP News asked for an on-air apology from Goswami. http://www.jantakareporter.com/india/abp-news-demands-air-apology-arnab-goswami-portraying-reporter-goon/168273/

    Which ABP News then got:

    If it was not clear already, it should be now that Republic TV works only as a BJP or anti-anyone who is not BJP channel. All this moaning about ill-treatment by various non-BJP politicians and lack of support from other journalists is nothing but a publicity stunt and sympathy-garnering device for its echo chamber.

    It is true that many people watch Republic TV for entertainment or for Goswami’s nightly dramas but sadly, many people also followed tabloids with headlines like “Woman gives birth to two-headed goat”.

    Popularity does not make whatever Republic TV does journalism.

     

     

    ​Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She is also Consulting Editor, MxMIndia. The views here are personal​

     

    		  

    Shailesh Kapoor: The Republic That Doesn’t Know

    The larger point here is on the brazen violation of basic journalistic norms. , writes Shailesh Kapoor

     

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    Progressive degeneration of the quality of primetime news being served on television has been a source of frustration for many like me who follow the genre closely. Till about a decade ago, Hindi news channels were associated with this degeneration theme. The famous cow-UFO story on India TV became the poster image of how Hindi news channels have made a mockery of what news should stand for.

    Over the last few years, this degenerative mindset has seeped into the English news genre. No, there are no stories of UFO pulling in cows. It’s within the mainstream news that we are seeing deterioration of the quality of coverage. And that makes it even more dangerous. Because you are evidently not supposed to take a cow-UFO story seriously. But how do we ensure that the balderdash being currently served in the name of news is not taken seriously by millions of unsuspecting viewers, who may just choose to believe what they see?

    Yet another symptom of this ever-growing concern was evident earlier this week in Republic TV’s coverage of Dalit leader JigneshMevani’s rally in Delhi. The coverage through the day, and then in Arnab Goswami’s debate show, was unequivocal in its extreme position on the rally, calling it a super flop, and calling those present there “goons” and “thugs”. The rally’s coverage was carried under the channel’s latest “initiative” – To call out the bluff of what they call the ‘TukdeTukde Gang’. But that’s even not the real issue of the day.

    A female reporter from the channel (Shivani) tried to get bytes from Mevani’s supporters, and some of them apparently “misbehaved” with her, which means telling her and her male colleague that they will not allow Republic TV to cover the rally, and making some “lewd gestures”, like a man seeming to stick out his tongue in mockery. There was no physical contact or sexual comments passed.

    But that didn’t stop Goswami from almost making this out to be a case of sexual assault, repeatedly playing on the gender of his reporter. But wait, even that’s not the real issue here.

     

    To dramatise the story, Goswami decide to mark out the goons, by putting a red circle around their face, calling them names and asking for their arrest. 3-4 in the crowd were thus marked out as Mevani’s goons. Goswami proclaimed: “Tonight, I will put out videos circling the pictures of the vulgar thugs who tried to intimidate Shivani and failed.”

    Next morning, it emerged that one of these “vulgar thugs” was, in fact, an ABP News supporter Jainendra Kumar, who was there covering the same story, and had, in fact, come to that part of the gathering to help his friend and fellow journalist Shivani out.

    ABP News demanded an apology, and even took the demand for apology on air, and rightly so too. An apology came the next day at primetime. But it was not a spoken apology by Goswami. It was a “written” apology on TV! A text-and-VO piece that ran between the two debates, which is just the time when most viewers switch channels. And the apology was in two parts. The first part mentioned the error and apologised, and the second part lauded the Republic TV journalist for her bravery.

    In this particular case, Republic TV just got unlucky, that one of the randomly marked-out people turned out to be a scribe. One can’t rule out the “marking out” of unsuspecting and innocent common men and women in many stories of this tone and tenor in the past. In fact, one of the other people marked out in this Republic story was a man who had nothing to do with Mevani. His wife, a columnist for a news website, called out Goswami in an article the next morning.

    Thelarger point here is on the brazen violation of basic journalistic norms. It’s a style that Goswami has championed, and continues to practice, more aggressively now than ever before.

    But to call out him alone will not be fair. His style of journalism has been apedby almost every English news channels, and quite a few in other languages too. And by choosing to do that, they become party to this process of degeneration of journalistic standards.

    Many argue that not watching news, or certain channels at least, is the way out. But that would be like putting your head in the sand like an ostrich. Unless there’s a mass boycott movement, which is as improbable as a humble spoken apology from Goswami, a few individual boycotts don’t serve any real purpose.

    So, watch we must, and express we must. Even if it is with a deep sense of anguish. Because we live in the times of the Internet and the social media, where sometimes, just one tweet or one blogpost can open up possibilities of a larger change.

     

    Shailesh Kapoor is Founder and CEO, Ormax Media. He writes weekly for MxMIndia. The views here are personal

     
  • Mishra has joined Times Now from ABP News and Jafri from Ketchum Sampark

    Times Network gets Sujeet Mishra to head marketing at Times Now, Hina Jafri to head comms for network

    By A Correspondent

     

    Sujeet Mishra
    Hina Jafri

    Times Network has got a new top deck in its marketing and communications functions. It has announced the appointment of Sujeet Mishra as Head of Marketing, Times Now. And brought in Hina Jafri to head communications for the network.

    In his role, Mishra will lead the brand’s strategic planning and communication including new brand initiatives, consumer research, market development across ATL, BTL and digital platforms. Based in Mumbai, Mishra will report to Vivek Srivastava, Executive Vice President, Times Network.

     

    Commenting on the appointment, Vivek Srivastava, Executive Vice President, Times Network said: “I’m delighted to welcome Sujeet to the Times Now team. His vast knowledge and strong capabilities in brand building, marketing communication will add tremendous value to our ambitious growth strategy in the English news segment.”

     

    Speaking on his new role, Mishra said: “I’m extremely excited to lead the marketing mandate for a brand that stands for creditability and accuracy in reportage, a reflection of true journalism. I look forward to channelising my best efforts and strengths into creating impactful marketing campaigns and sustaining the leadership position of Times Now.”

     

    Although Jafri’s announcement has not been formally announced, communiques from the group clearly mention her name. Jafri has over a decade-and-a-half in communications in leading PR agencies and was last with Ketchum Sampark as Vice President.

     

     

  • What Goswami did is not excusable, writes Ranjona Banerji. He stole an experience to make himself look bigger and braver. All it has done is make him look smaller and sillier

    Arnab Goswami – A Legend in His Own Mind?

     

    B​y Ranjona Banerji

    What an incredible kerfuffle! In a speech he made a couple of years ago, TV anchor Arnab Goswami told a moving story about how he was attacked by riotous mobs carrying trishuls, close to the chief minister’s residence, while covering the Gujarat riots in 2002. Great story​,​ ​but one slight issue with it. The incident did happen. But it did not happen to Goswami. It happened to Rajdeep Sardesai and other colleagues at NDTV.

    Sardesai put the video of Goswami’s speech up on Twitter, expressing surprise at Goswami’s story. The video was taken down and then put up again. Inevitably, minor spats broke out all over Twitter. An employee of Republic TV standing up for her boss, Goswami, posted a photograph where Goswami was part of the group covering the riots. This claim was quickly demolished by Goswami’s former colleagues – he was sent to Gujarat yes but to Kheda and a week after Sardesai’s car was attacked by a mob. The photo was taken later. Several colleagues from NDTV corroborated Sardesai’s assertion that Goswami was lying. Goswami was also defended, or rather Sardesai was attacked, by actor Anupam Kher who occasionally functions as a spokesperson for the government and now also apparently for Goswami.

    What makes someone lie like this? In an article for DailyO, journalist Swati Chaturvedi called Goswami a “fantasist”. On an India Today TV show on the issue, lawyer Sanjay Hegde pointed out, tongue firmly in cheek, that everyone is entitled to be a “legend in their own minds”.

    But what it comes to down to plain and simple is plagiarism. Writers steal words. Those who do not write, steal experiences. Goswami’s story had many personal touches which add verisimilitude – the fear of the driver who had no ID, Goswami’s preference to sit in the front of a car, the sound of the mob. This was a story he must have internalised until it became his own. Perhaps he really believes it happened to him. Maybe he wished it happened to him. Goswami is a studio creation. He was forgettable in his earlier jobs, whatever he did there. He came into his own thundering behind a desk at Times Now.

    Perhaps however he still carries a torch for his non-existent days as an intrepid reporter, covering perilous ground and breaking earth-shattering stories. Since he does not have enough fireside chat experiences of his own, he has no option but to steal the experiences of others. Or maybe he was just borrowing this one: he was going to return it but he forgot: “I covered the riots but not this part that I wanted to cover. So I thought I’d just try your part for a bit to see what it felt like.”

    Of all the roles that journalism offers you, reporting is only one of them. It is not too late for Goswami to become a reporter. He may find it suits him. But he must be more courageous than he has been in the past. Even recently, during one of Mumbai’s super-rainy days, he did not venture very far from his office and stood under a flyover on Tulsi Pipe Road with an umbrella. That is not proper reporting. Nor is going to Milan ​Subway in Santa Cruz.

    He can instead prowl the countryside of Raigad to find any more clues in Sheena Bora’s murder. It may be more dramatic to go at night. And not wear a suit while he does it, although that can be his signature move. He might also lurk around the Leela Palace hotel in Delhi and solve the Sunanda Pushkar case all by himself.

    But let us get down to brasstacks. What Goswami did is not excusable. He stole an experience to make himself look bigger and braver. All it has done is make him look smaller and sillier.

    It has been a while since Goswami stopped practising any type or form of journalism. If he wants to make a comeback, I am not sure that stealing someone else’s experience is the right way to go about it.

    But who knows. This is the “new India”. Anything is possible.

    **

    Meanwhile, it is terrible that one more journalist was brutally killed, this time in the line of duty. Santanu Bhowmick was covering a protest in Tripura when he was abducted and hacked to death by political elements at the rally. This has sadly become all too common – to kill journalists in an attempt to silence the media. Appalling, unacceptable.

     

    ​Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She is also Consulting Editor, MxMIndia. The views here are personal​

     

  • Rather than fighting it out via ads and distribution, both Times Now & Republic TV would do well to concentrate on content

    Time for Vineet Jain & Arnab Goswami to smoke the peace pipe?

     

    By Pradyuman Maheshwari

    There are liars, damned liars and statisticians. And that couldn’t be truer when it comes to TV viewership claims.

    Data can be misrepresented and quoted by slicing and dicing to an unsuspecting public, marking a dwarf look tall. That’s exactly what’s happening in the English News Genre lately.

    There has been a desperate and losing attempt to claim leadership by a phoney claimant whose shrill pitch is pathetic attempt to pass off as relevant. Data is misquoted using irrelevant markets, periods and time bands to selectively project an illusion, much like a silhouette show uses light.

    The trick to read through this is to understand the real currency that matters. In the case of English News it’s the premium NCCS AB, 22+ Male Viewers in the 1 Million+ cities All India. The six Mega City data is also representative. TV channel viewership is compared by all day viewership. Specific time bands are used only when comparing shows and not channels.

    Another way to know, is if the source itself is of highest credibility and known to not resort to such manipulation – someone like Times Network.

    Anything else is simply an attempt to mislead and gain undue benefit.

    No marks for guessing who the ad is targeting. Republic TV, of course. And since the recently launched news channel is all about its founder, editor-in-chief and chief promoter Arnab Goswami, it’s hitting out at Goswami. The phoney claimant whose “shrill pitch” being “a pathetic attempt to pass off as relevant” is hence none other than Goswami, the former Times Now bossman.

    But one must say that the ad has happened after much ‘tu tu main main’ between the bosses of Times Now and Republic TV.

    Sources within the Times Network establishment as well as in the news broadcast industry say that  more than the war of the Times Network (the broadcast arm of the Times of India group), it’s a war of sorts between the group’s managing director Vineet Jain and Goswami.

    Prior to the launch of the Republic, Goswami has compared the battle for supremacy between the two channels like that of a David versus Goliath. There was a controversy around certain trademarks filed for and there was a very clear and loud offensive from both ends.

    At MxM, we have observed each and every move of both channels and both owners, and we can say that both have tried their best to outwit each other. Goswami and his crew have also not stopped short of taking potshots at the Times group, though they may not be be as vitriolic as the text of the advertisement.

    The News Broadcasters Association (NBA) which has the Times Network CEO in its top leadership also got into the act asking for measurement body BARC to not publish Republic TV data because it employed an incorrect trade practice or multiple LCNs. After Republic pledged to the Courts that is not resorting to dual LCNs to shore up its numbers, both channels got into the act of landing pages.

    Landing pages is until now not an illegal practice, but requires a spend of big monies to the distribution trade. According to unverified information that we have received, the collective spends from the two channels per annum would be in the region of Rs 20-30 crore. The bulk of the spends is from Times Now.

    What landing pages helps achieve for both channels is that the viewership numbers leapfrog, but that doesn’t necessarily mean an increase in time spent on the channel. In fact the average could go down as people view a certain channel only for a minute-odd and then switch to the channel of their choice.

    Industry seniors MxMIndia spoke with aver that the amount spent on pushing distribution in an inorganic manner is a waste. I would rather have the monies being spent on newsgathering and improving the quality of the content or even other outreach activities, said one trade captain.

    But the stakes are high for both channels. Republic TV, given the reputation that Goswami had built for himself at Times Now, needed to be on top of the charts to create an impact. And for Times Now, being part of India’s biggest news media company, it needed to show that it’s not dependant on any single individual to stay on as the leader.

    Sadly, the network doesn’t seem to have learnt from its mistake, and in the case of Mirror Now, it is only propping up the channels primetime anchor and editor-in-chief Faye D’Souza.

    Times Now has tried its damnedest to ensure that it doesn’t get affected, but even some insiders concede that the channel has taken a beating post the exit of Goswami. Also, the primetime alternatives that the channel has put up don’t really match up to Goswami.

    However, it is creditable that the channel has not lost out very much, and that has been done thanks to its extensive reach and also editorially, it has ensured that it keeps raising the bar, even though content-wise – and in the pro-Narendra Modi, pro-rightwing genre – Republic is clearly a better channel.

    Sadly, the channels with more neutral content – like India Today and CNN-News18 haven’t been able to measure up on the ratings roster. A more anti-Narendra Modi NDTV 24×7 which has been facing some heat given its financial past has also not been able to put up good numbers on the weekly BARC charts. In fact there was a time when the channel even exited from the Top 5 English news channels.

    According to audience measurement numbers that we have seen, there is a clear inorganic rise of both Times Now and Republic TV. That of the former is very evident given the average numbers it generated before the launch of Republic.

    Our view: For the larger good of the news business, it’s important that both Times Now and Republic TV and specifically Vineet Jain and Arnab Goswami smoke the peace pipe and stop wasting money on pushing distribution. And indulge in this ‘tu tu main main’.

    It’s vital that broadcast trade associations like the IBF and NBA make the two see reason and back off. Let the content do the talking, and not fight via advertising and inorganically generated viewership numbers.