Americans are traditionally good at
branding and marketing. However, till 1991 Hollywood, whose movies are
distributed across the globe, had one serious problem. They didn’t have a news
media brand that could be identified globally. BBC was known universally but no American channel had such wide
recognition. All that changed on January 17, 1991 when a small crew stayed back
in Baghdad to report on the first Gulf war. In a few hours CNN became a household name across the world. CNN was the first 24X7 news channel in the
world to report live from various sites; particularly disasters, accidents and
incidents. 1991 was also the year private channels came into India. Most of
them borrowed the same format of CNN but, unfortunately, borrowed the worst
from American media. While CNN has since had an international version our news
channels became 24X7 without having enough news content. They mostly report
from Delhi, Mumbai and other Metros. Naturally, this meant filling up time with
irrelevant stuff and a heavy dose of Bollywood, Cricket, excessive repetition
of stale news and most of all political witch-hunts.
Before long, these private channels
realised they didn’t have a revenue model to sustain themselves and thus came
in political propaganda, witch-hunts, sponsored programmes without declaration
(which they now declare). Other sponsored programmes include summits,
conclaves, sham awards and some even using political clout for survival. They
also give each other all kinds of awards so it is fair that we have a people’s
version of the ‘Razzies’ for the
worst news channels. Therefore this poll was conducted here and we have the
results.
A bit about the poll: Voters were
allowed multiple choices and therefore the total number of voters (4052) and the total number of votes or
percentage share will obviously not match. Only news channels that grandly call
themselves “national” channels were
included in the poll. And being a govt propaganda channel Doordarshan wasn’t
included. Besides, DD doesn’t have the same problems and challenges as the
private channels. The results and tabulation are appended to the post.
Here
are the five honourable winners of “India’s Worst News Channels” poll:
5. IBN7
– Being one of the latecomers in the Hindi news category IBN7 never seems to
have picked up at all. Worse, the managing editor of the channel, Ashutosh, has
become more of a political activist than a news channel editor. There is a
particular form of contempt for anything that is “Hindu” that pours out of this
channel that is most unbecoming of any outlet claiming to be a news channel. Who
else would want to dress up an Islamic terrorist as a ‘saffron’ terrorist? Ashutosh may not like a political party or its
leaders but to be constantly pouring out hate-messages doesn’t do much for
viewership either. I am surprised Raghav Bahl didn’t shut down this channel or
at least sack the editor. In any case, I expect there will be a time not too
far in the future when this channel may wind up.
4.
NDTV India (Hindi) – Their website
says: “This 24-hour Hindi news channel stands strong as one of India’s leading
credible news channels – preferred by an audience which seeks quality
programming and pure news, rather than sensational infotainment”. I honestly don’t
watch much of NDTVIndia but for a channel that is as much a political
mouthpiece for Congress to claim “credible” is good imagination. And there is
hardly any channel in India that is “pure news”. Here’s a challenge: If you can
name the editor of this channel then you are probably someone who knows their business
because I had to check twice myself. The only redeeming feature of this channel
appears to be the popular show with Ravish Kumar, otherwise they are no
different from their English mother when it comes to “Congress ke taraf se defend kar dena”.
Being the Hindi sibling of their English
channels both IBN7 and NDTV (Hindi) change their character dramatically (from
their English versions) to include a lot of mindless drama and BigBoss and
Saas-Bahu stuff which seems to sell with Hindi audiences. This is staple diet
for AajTak and ABPNews which top the Hindi ratings. This is, of course, in
addition to Bollywood and Cricket which are common across all channels
regardless of language. Here are TAM ratings released on December 14:
Even in TAM ratings both IBN7 and NDTV
(Hindi) are languishing at the lower end. There also appears to be a problem
with the branding gurus at these channels. It is doubtful viewers want brand
extensions in multiple languages. In that respect, although people are aware,
viewers don’t easily confuse AajTak and HeadlinesToday to be the same brand as
they might with extensions of NDTV and IBN. There are also other local Hindi
channels which they are competing with which aren’t named here.
3.
Times Now – Clearly the market leader
in English news currently and therefore less disliked than others. Much of the
entertainment from this channel comes from the nightly circus with Arnab
Goswami. While sometimes enjoyable, Arnab’s style has also started irritating
viewers and his over-aggressive behaviour has motivated other anchors and
reporters of the channel to misbehave with those they target for questioning.
Along with IndiaTV, TimesNow can share the credit for destroying the concept of
‘breaking news’. Mindless headlines
like “Sonia gets into her car”, “Sonia reaches PM’s residence”, “Judge enters
the court room” or “Modi remains silent” are flashed and screamed as breaking
news. Every 2 minutes through the day some silly nonsense is breaking news. The
only advantage TimesNow has over other channels is that Arnab still remains
taint-free and enjoys the value of ‘personal integrity’ with viewers.
2.
CNN-IBN – I often call this a “mom
and pop” stores. As with their Hindi sibling CNN-IBN too becomes a political
activist quite frequently. Their editor Rajdeep Sardesai and deputy Sagarika
Ghose are both unfit for journalism. They would have made better Christian
missionaries for something like World Vision. The entire IBN group had to go
through the trauma of firing over 300 employees and doesn’t seem to have a
business model. People are yet to forget shameful episodes like Cash4Votes,
unwarranted defence of SoniaG and RahulG, playing defence for Robert Vadra
and, of course, being anti-Hindu in tone of their content. It remains a
mouth-piece of the Congress but given the party’s downturn in recent times the
channel has switched to propping up the AAP party. The channel does have some
good journalists who are often left to do minor programmes. As with Ashutosh,
both Rajdeep and Sagarika are known for their hatred for Modi and the right
wing. Sagarika too should have been sacked long back but the ones who scream
the most about nepotism and moral corruption are usually the ones who also fuel
it the most. Ignoble excuses like “tyranny of distance” or not enough “body
count” to report certain incidents will be the permanent hallmark of CNN-IBN.
1.
NDTV – There isn’t anything that NDTV
isn’t No.1 at, is there? Whether it’s worst journalists or worst channel, NDTV
rules! Each year this Congress propaganda channel only grows more brazen in its
nonsense, lower in popularity and (probably) deeper in debt. How the channel
which makes consistent financial losses and keeps rewarding its top personnel is a mystery. The taint attached to the top personnel of a
company always sticks to the organisation too. The unexplained dumping of a CBIcase against Prannoy Roy, allegations of financial jugglery, Radiagate of Barkha and their
hate campaign against Modi add up to this channel being voted the worst. It is
obvious that NDTV survives and gets away with things only due to its political
capital and clout. An anchor of this channel wanted to question the SC about some
ruling. They hold a sham award function at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. They even
use fake pictures and videos to report a serious disaster like
Uttarakhand floods. I estimate a certain level of trauma for this political
channel whenever the govt at the Centre changes. Till then they will enable us
to see the “larger” picture or send us reports from the “north lawns” of the
White House. Thanks also to NDTV; we have come to read every news item as “alleged” news. They are deservedly the No.1
in this particular contest; India’s worst news channel.
The channel voted worst in the poll has
fallen even behind a relative newcomer like NewsX. Most readers of this
site perhaps watch more of the English channels and therefore the worst ones
could also be the most watched, given few options in English media. However, the
votes polled proportionately reflect the viewer ratings by TAM too in order of
popularity. Here are TAM ratings released on December 14 for English news
channels:
It is also worth noting that each of the
English channels claim they are No.1 in viewership with deceptive claims for
different time-slots and events. Reminds me of the race where USA was declared
coming in “second last” position by
the propagandists. And the race had only two people; a Russian and an American.
Do read Moneylife’s “TV channels hoodwink readers with misleading advertisements about themselves”. It is
not just about themselves these news channels hoodwink people; they hoodwink
viewers on many issues. It is increasingly hard to tell the difference between
govt and news media. The watch has long gone out of the “watchdog”. But people
are indeed able to see through them as the votes for the worst channels indicate.
Our congratulations to the winners!
Poll results and tabulation
TAM
rating figures… Thanks to @ASRaghunath.
