If You Have The Inclination, We Have The Crime

Lots of Opportunities since the new regime came in. Let’s make lots of money. If you have the inclination, we have the crime.

In just the previous post we looked at how Hindustan Times with its HT Summit splurged on public money. Most of their major sponsors being big time PSUs and govt companies. Even the poor man’s work insurance corporation, ESIC, seems to have found compelling reasons to invest in HT Summit. Part of that unholy trinity of media I wrote about is CNN-IBN, HT’s media side-kick. It’s Managing Editor, Rajdeep Sardesai (RS), often likes to talk about “integrity”. Look at the samples. In the first tweet from February 2010 he yearns for “news with integrity” and in the second one, from July 2012, he complains about his integrity being questioned. “Those who abuse...” he says. Actually, anything that questions or ridicules our media celebs is nothing but ‘abuse’. The second tweet is because he had to apologise for an earlier stupid and tasteless tweet of his. When Deep Throat said “follow the money” he damn well knew what he meant. Pursuit of news and stories never resulted in loss of integrity but pursuit of extraordinary wealth has often led to loss of integrity. For almost a month my Twitter friend Suresh Nakhua has been asking questions of RS and CNN-IBN; tricky, troublesome questions which, of course, would amount to ‘abuse’ in the world of RS.

In this post I will just summarise the questions by Suresh Nakhua who has storified the financial joyride of CNN-IBN and certain group companies in his post “Few questions for@sardesairajdeep & some unknown facts abt CNNIBN”.  In other words Suresh has just tried to follow the money. Before you look at the maze of companies, here is a company that became part of Global Broadcast News Ltd (GBN). And it’s splendidly titled ‘SRH New Holding Private limited’.

Well, well, all the names from the CNN-IBN family are there. Sardesai, Bahl, Anubha, Chaubeji, Vidya Shankar and, of course, Cacofonix. Don’t read too much into that because there is nothing wrong there. This is just to share the ‘dramatis monetis’. All you need to do is follow Suresh’s tweets on that page sequentially and enlarge the images contained in each. You will find integrity in each. So here are the questions that remain unanswered:

1. SRH was a loss making company so how did it end up giving loans worth 19.71 crores? Hmm! One could say “we are a private company and it’s none of your business”. Yeah, so you can’t be in the public domain and keep screaming about integrity either.

2. The remuneration of Jt. MD, Sameer Manchanda, exceeds the limits prescribed under the Companies Act. The explanation is that GOI approval has been sought and if not received the moneys will be returned. Clever? First commit the offence and then claim the money is being held in “trust” and if the approval is not received, it will be returned. Integrity!

3. At March 2006 GBN had a loss of 46.53 crores. It’s a perfect qualification to receive an “unsecured loan” of 40 crores during the year, isn’t it? We shouldn’t complain about the loan itself. It should be of interest to all of us who or what entity gives such loans just in case we anticipate huge losses too. Needless to say, you need integrity.

4. To run your business you do need some pocket money at times. Who’s your daddy? Of course, Syndicate Bank. So you have this bank lending an unsecured loan of 5 crores to tide over festival periods. While the title shows the amount as ‘secured borrowings’ the statement says ‘NIL’ against security created. What was it secured with, integrity? Do read the article on Reliance and ‘Raghav’s Endgame’ squeezed in between.

5. Then Raghav Bahl, the Chairman of TV18 group, has some 7 Income tax cases pending against him. That’s normal if you’re running a large group of media companies, nothing to worry. Then in another page that Suresh produces, an IT penalty of over 1Cr has been reduced to a mere Rs.53461. Nice, isn’t it? Who’s your daddy? Integrity?

6. That’s all. Oh yes, there’s this small thing apart from the IT cases, there is an ROC case against Raghav Bahl that is pending. Oh, one more thing. There is this e-Eighteen.Com and Victor Fernandes who claim Bahl & Co. illegally diverted their businesses and are demanding over 3000 crores in compensation. If I read correctly, it claims there was an undertaking that TV18 would route business distribution through e-Eighteen which Bahl is accused of breaking. Integrity! Not the kind of program that will be debated on CNN-IBN or any of its group channels for sure.

There is hardly any doubt that since the arrival of the UPA govt in 2004 there has been a dramatic growth in the fortunes of certain media companies. People were complaining of the amount of tax-payer money on the recently executed terrorist Ajmal Kasab. He’s just one guy. The amount of tax-payer money certain media outlets may be guzzling without notice is like silent killers; like Cancer or Diabetes. I have stated earlier that our news media is the first line of defence for the corrupt. Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal have been spending a lot of effort on politicians. If they spent half that effort on media houses I have absolutely no doubts that corruption and financial misdeeds will start diminishing in every other sphere. And next time Rajdeep Sardesai talks about integrity I suggest you have a good laugh. At least laughing doesn’t cost anything.

*The title is from a Pet Shop Boys song.

Advertising Avarice

So the news channels are up in protest against a TRAI notification. Maybe some other channels too. And what is their grievance? That if the TRAI advertising limit of 12 minutes per hour is enforced most of them may find the business unviable and shut down. That would probably be good for people. Some news channels are simply not even news channels. If you add up the content of any news channel for a whole 24 hours the net content wouldn’t be more than 2 hours’ worth. The rest is made up of repeats and advertisements or even religious discourses. Almost everyone has either watched IPL or any other Cricket match but you wake up in the morning to catch up on some news you are likely to find these matches being discussed and clips being played over and over again. There isn’t any news-worthiness or original content in such programmes. Still, let us give them the benefit of airing what they choose and when they choose. Even if they have collectively forgotten that ‘news’ is public service.

So what are the TRAI guidelines that seem to have upset our honest, truthful and nation-building news channels? Here are excerpts from an IndiaToday report:

The TRAI notification says, no broadcaster shall carry in its broadcast of a programme, advertisements exceeding 12 minutes in a clock hour and any shortfall of advertisement in any clock hour shall not be carried over…..The ads in the clock hour shall include all types of commercials including those promoting the TV channel itself… that the ads carried on its channels are only full-screen advertisements and there shall be no part-screen or drop-down advertisement….that the audio level of the advertisements carried in its channel shall not be higher than the audio level of the programme being broadcast in the channel.

And India Today adds its own two cents: These restrictions on advertisements will reduce the earnings of the news channels and make it difficult for them to operate. Most news channels are running into losses or operating on wafer-thin margins as they have to make huge investments in preparing the news programmes and then bearing the entire cost of uplinking the content to the satellite from where it is downloaded by the multi-service operators.

Alright, so you might be led to think the news gangs are protesting some new TRAI notification. Not at all! The 12-minute rule has existed for a long time and the channels have simply been brazenly flouting all norms and rules of advertising for many years. So what they really want is the license to continue flouting the rules else they will die. Isn’t that nice? What if I tell you I want to beat up a few people because unless I do that I can’t live in peace? So the law should allow me to break laws for my survival. The recent TRAI notice was one to only remind the news channels of the rules which channels should adhere to. It was required to issue this notification in response to many complaints it had received against illegitimate advertising by news channels. In January 2011 a NGO, Utsarg, had filed a petition against the news channels with the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) on this very issue. TDSAT had to then take up the matter which has finally culminated in the fresh notice by TRAI. Prior to this, in a post titled ‘Fradulent Invasion of Privacy…” I had listed the evil of Pop-up ads and screen-blocking ads.

 The print news media, in contrast to TV, is allowed over 60% of paper space for ads and commercials. While I am not debating whether it’s fair or not, at least with a newspaper you have the option of skipping the ads and reading the news and content of your choice. Even so, sometimes there will such gross features that you’d find it impossible to miss the images. Hmmm, this is particularly so when it concerns products for which ads are banned – tobacco and liquor. Take a look at this Hindustan Times article on the increasing popularity of Vodka among younger consumers: “Splash of white”. Ah well, new Vodka brands launched since 2011 can’t have mega launch campaigns or ads. But if you wanted to know which the new launches are, HT is there to tell you. And not just that, the huge images of Smirnoff and KetelOne aren’t even the new brand launches listed. That makes me wonder if Smirnoff and KetelOne and others make this a form of ‘paid news’. Only HT can confirm or deny. HT is not the only one, many other liquor and tobacco products are carried as “Features” with images larger than even normal ads in almost all newspapers.

If journalism was also about ethics, our TV news channels have absolutely no qualms about breaking rules, carrying surrogate advertising by every liquor brand and even carrying propaganda for political parties. The 12 minute advertising limit can surely be negotiated and increased a bit but beyond that all the fraudulent pop-ups and screen-blocking ads during programmes must surely stop.

Lastly, it would be naïve of anyone to believe that our news channels survive purely on advertising revenue. That used to be the old model. If this were true for the present then no news channel would be able to explain the illogically high investments many are still receiving from the corporate sector. Recently, Reliance has made huge investments in the TV18 group (CNN-IBN), Aditya Birla group has made investments in Living Media (Aaj Tak, Headlines Today). Surely, if Reliance or Birla wanted to seek great profits then news media is hardly a great prospect going by the wailing of the news channels over thin profits or losses. If the current 24-hour model of news TV advertising is not generating enough profits I find it hard to believe there can be a 48-hour model. The greed and avarice that drives the lust in our news channels to deliver a cocktail of Bollywood, Fashion shows, Cricket, Beauty Pageants, Page 3 culture, Surrogate liquor ads, Propaganda is really not about News at all. A serious investigation into the finances of major news channels by a statutory body, like CAG or ED, will reveal a lot more than “News”.