From the way CEOs and editors keep defending the brain-dead programming on Hindi channels, you would think that the population of morons is galloping in the country.

Thankfully, the contrary is true.

Every time we question their stupid content decisions, the channels come out with facts and figures to silence us. They tell us how their cut-and-paste coverage of Rakhi Sawant’s “swayamvar” walloped Manmohan Singh’s second coming in the TRPs.

That argument settles it. The viewer is responsible for the puerile news content. We are the perverts, they are our benefactors who give us our daily fix without which we will wilt and die.

The channels have used this twisted logic to not just absolve themselves of the falling standards of news on TV but to give an impression that the only way to protect or grow their business in the Hindi news genre is to cater to this growing tribe of perverts.

Well then, here’s the breaking news. The perverts are not growing, they are dwindling. Let’s grab this rare chance to throw some figure in their face, for a change:

Year                 Share

2006                 7.61% (9 channels)

2007                 8.03% (11 channels)

2008                 7.89% (11 channels)

2009                 5.85% (11 channels)

(Source: TAM, HSM CS 15+)

These are the year-wise market share figures for the news genre. The TV viewership universe consists of various genres such as general entertainment, infotainment, movies, sports, news, etc.

The stats above show that in 2006, the news genre (nine Hindi “national” news channels) had an average share of 7.61% of the overall TV viewership. That is, 7.61 out of every 100 viewers watched news then. The figure rose to 8.03% for 11 channels in 2007, dropped a little to 7.89% in 2008 and dived to a pitiful 5.85% in 2009.

From the highest (in 2007) to the lowest (in 2009), it is a sharp fall of 27 per cent. In other words, in the last two years alone, the Hindi news universe has shrunk by more than one-fourth. Any other industry would consider such a steep fall in market share as catastrophic, but not the Hindi news industry. The Hindi industry assumes that there will always be a good number of masochists to help it survive.

If there is one crisis that is facing the Hindi news industry, it is this. Much as the industry tries to paint a picture of the viewer as a willing consumer of pulp, the ground is slipping under its feet. It is clear that the average viewer has had enough of nonsense and is turning off. And yet, I have never heard any CEO or editor talk about this looming danger at any industry meet or interview. Talk of living in denial.

But that’s so typical of the channel-wallahs. They will just shut out the inconvenient truths. They will never tell you that sensible programming also brings in the numbers as often as popcorn journalism and that they do more of the latter just because it is easier and cheaper to cut-paste content from entertainment channels than to create their own.

Let me illustrate this with just the example of one channel, Star News, which has over the last few months tried to correct the balance between sense and nonsense. The pains it took to create some special programmes paid off with ratings way above the channel average, sometimes turning in double or nearly three times that (Star News’ channel TRPs average around 14/15).

Here’s a quick list:

• Uttradhakari, a special show on Rahul Gandhi, turned in 21% share.
• Tiranga, their I-Day special gave an astounding 33%
• Vansh, on the Thackeray family, 26%
• Vansh, on the Mahajan family, 19%
• Raj Ka Uday, on Raj Thackeray, 22%
• Mere Khoon Ka Ek Ek Katra, on Indira Gandhi’s death anniv, 32%

If that is not indication that the viewer is more than willing to spend his time on good content, what is? The difficulty is that such content needs a lot of planning, travelling, spending and ideating and the other content (of the Rakhi Swayamvar type) comes easy, packaged, and free. The former content takes time and effort to build a brand and bring in the TRPs and the latter brings instant gratification.

Most CEOs and editors have resolved this stand-off between instant gratification and long-term returns in favour of the former. It is beyond their capacity and vision to change the game now and play for the future. That is a call only the owners can take because it could mean taking a hit for a bit and the possibility of failure is real, too.

That’s the crucial difference between News 24 and Zee News. The owners of News 24 started with the “news is back” proposition but quickly abandoned it. They did not have enough faith in news and took the silly route within no time. That has not given them any great business advantage. The proprietors of Zee News gave a clear diktat to return to sensible news and stay with it. They risked falling ratings and business. That clarity and patience has helped Zee News gain respectability without hurting its profitability.

If tomorrow all Hindi news channels were to suddenly pull the plug on stupid content, what would the viewer do, stop watching news? Nah, even if it is true that the viewers hate sensible content (the channels keep telling us that all the time) they would still have no choice but to watch the channels.

So, the burden of change is on the channels, not the viewers. If only more owners had Subhash Chandra’s guts.

Team, I am aware the box office numbers this morning have disappointed all of you. I was disappointed, too, though I was not expecting anything other than a drubbing. We have suddenly stopped the supply of opium to our viewers and it is only natural that they should show severe withdrawal symptoms.  Rather than restart the supply to them, we should stay the course and remove all traces of the drug from their veins, after all, it is we who put them on the dangerous drug diet.

That, or something like that, was the note I wrote to my senior colleagues at Zee News in early May 2008 to pep up the mood in the newsroom. We had just relaunched the channel (May 8). We threw out all dirty content (some of which, such as “kaal kapaal mahakaal”, we ourselves were guilty of introducing to news TV) and took an about turn towards news of relevance.

“News, not nuisance” was one of our war cries and the channel tagline changed to “Zara Sochiye” (just think), to suggest we were now seeking the discerning viewer.

A few days later, the ratings arrived and we were vanquished. We dropped three points to end up in single digit TRPs after a long time. All the excitement of the relaunch went pssssss and the mood was low, prompting that pep talk from me.

I’ve been out of Zee News for nearly one year now, so no credit or blame for what’s happening there now should attach to me. Hence I suppose I can talk a bit about the Zee News experiment to make a case against all those news channel worthies, editors and CEOs, who keep feeding you lies that they are like this only because you are like this.

The ratings remained sluggish for another few weeks, but Zee News didn’t blink. The alarm bells began ringing and we did consider if we should tuck our tails and return to the same old nonsense. Thankfully, those were only transient thoughts and we stuck to our guns. We put our trust in news that no channel worth its meager TRPs would touch with a barge pole.

Earlier in March that year, we had already tasted the fruits of putting our faith in news of relevance. On March 23, the Sixth Pay Commission turned in its report. That kind of story touches the lives of more than four million families of central government employees and millions more families of state government employees, defence and para military forces.

But it rates poorly in the TRP sweepstakes because though it might pauperise governments, it is tough to extrapolate and announce the end of the world, to the accompaniment of deadly, stolen-from-the-net, music. So no channel would touch it. But Zee News covered it aggressively and exhaustively. It worked. It worked so much that our prime time show that day beat all the shows across all channels.

Though the post-relaunch drubbing was a problem, the Pay Commission experience told us news can deliver. Along came the big controversy on the nuclear deal with the US. It may have ended up in a very fractious vote of confidence on July 23 that every channel was forced to cover, but in early May when it was raising its head, contemporary newsroom wisdom considered it a TRP dud. We did not. We saw an opportunity. Helped by some good reporting and led by a channel editor with a good political acumen, we grabbed the story by its horns. That helped send the message that something fresh was happening at Zee News.

The TRP worm started nudging upwards, though it is yet to drill a hole in the roof, really.

It makes sense to recount all this because last week’s ratings are very interesting. AajTak, the leader, fell two points to 17, India TV came in second at 16, Star News at 15 and Zee News at 13 with a 2-point spike (week 45, HSM, CS 15+ ABC).  That’s just a 4-point difference between the No. 1 and the No. 4, perhaps the best for Zee in a long time.

That is creditable because of the four channels at the top of the Hindi heap, Zee News is the one which has steadfastly stuck to the sensible news formula. When all channels scare the daylights out of you because an eclipse is round the corner, Zee tells you not to be afraid of such scientific phenomenon. When all channels tell you how the world will come to an end in 2012, Zee exposes the conspiracy of a Hollywood studio to hype its disaster movie by the same name that released last week.

Zee has stayed on the higher side of the average of its pre-relaunch TRPs for many more weeks than it has dropped below that threshold, if at all.  Which is a very statistical way of saying that the faith Zee News has shown in news for 18 months has helped it more than it has hurt. If Zee News has not done better with the ratings, it is not because news has let it down, maybe Zee News still has a few things to sort out.

At around the same time that Zee News was trying this experiment, News 24, was doing exactly the opposite. News 24 came with a big promise: News is back, it claimed. For the first four or five months, it did seem like news was back. The channel steadfastly kept away from the India TV formula, a content no-brainer. But it was stuck at the bottom of the heap with TRPs in the 4-6 range.

Suddenly, the channel caved in. It joined the nuisance bandwagon. It’s been there for the last 18 months but is still in the same TRP band. In the 18 months that Zee News gained marginally and protected its profitability, News 24, is still a struggling also-running. If it had persisted with its unique content, it could have gained respectability and, who knows, a few points more, too.

You want to know what is the crucial difference in the experiences of Zee News and News 24? Let’s meet here next week, please.

– B V Rao was Group Editor of Zee News briefly in 2008 and feels lucky to have been part of the team to initiate the changes.

Tamilnadu is in the news for the arrest of two editors in quick succession on charges of criminal defamation. B Lenin, the news editor of Dinamalar, a widely circulated daily, was arrested on October 7 and A S Mani, editor of “Netrikan”, a Madurai magazine, was arrested in the last week of October.

After a TV actress was arrested for prostitution, Dinamalar published a report naming seven well-known Tamil actresses as also being involved in the racket. By way of proof they had what they called the arrested actress’ statement to the police.

The Tamil film industry rose in angry protest led by the likes of Rajnikanth and Vijaykanth.  Considering the filial connections of the Tamil film industry to politics, swift action was a given but the manner in which it came was reprehensible. Cops turned up unannounced and dragged Lenin away from the newsroom.  When you do that to the Dinamalar newsroom in Chennai, the intent is clear: open intimidation of the media.

Netrikan’s Mani had published a story claiming Union Minister MK Alagiri was receiving kickbacks for allotting road contracts in South Tamilnadu. Netrikan has very little reach even in Madurai so not many have seen the article. Once again, the story only named Alagiri but did not nail him with proof.

The Editors Guild of India was quick to pounce on the two transgressions on the freedom of the press. It said it was shocked to hear that the cops turned up without a warrant to arrest Lenin and even denied him legal assistance. “The Editors Guild of India has consistently held that arrest and imprisonment of Editors and Journalists for complaints of defamation amounts to intimidation of the media and is an affront to the freedom of the press. The section on criminal defamation is a hangover of the colonial raj, where editors and journalists were thrown into the prison on the pretext that they had committed criminal defamation. The British authorities used this draconian provision to terrorise the newspapers,” it said in response to Mani’s arrest.

I cannot quarrel with that view. Intimidation of media is a serious matter so it is comforting when the most respected body of journalists (current President is Rajdeep Sardesai) springs up in defence of professional freedoms. But that’s not to say I have no quarrel.

My quarrel is with what the Guild’s press releases did not say. In Lenin’s case, I read extracts of the Guild’s statements as published by newspapers.  In Mani’s case I was able to procure the full text of the statement (neither is available on the Guild’s official website). In both the statements, I did not see a word of condemnation of the poor quality of journalism in both the cases.

Dinamalar and Netrikan had published reports that may have been true but did not produce a shred of evidence to prove that. That is lazy, shortcut journalism when you want to be charitable but since freedom of press doesn’t come in charity, it should be seen as reckless misuse of the same freedom. While rightly protesting the excessive police action in both cases, the Guild would have done the profession a greater service by being equally vehement about this sad transgression and advising the profession to recognize that freedom of press is not an unencumbered right, that it is not absolute.

I mention this omission because I think it is part of a larger malaise: the media’s inability or unwillingness to look within and course correct. Because bang in the middle of these two arrests, something far worse was going on. The elections to Maharashtra and Haryana assemblies were in full swing and media houses were auctioning away the same “freedom” that the Guild wants to protect, to the highest bidder.

Newspapers big and small, were selling sacred news space to political parties and candidates. These were actually advertisements disguised as news stories.  Packages for interviews, profiles, campaign trail stories, stories favouring the paying-candidate or stories against his rival; every lousy trick was being used to make money by cheating the reader and subverting democracy itself.

But not a word on that from the Guild.

Thankfully though, not everybody is a mute spectator. The Foundation for Media Professionals organised a dialogue in Delhi on October 21 on the “blurring of lines between News and Ads”. The venerable Prabhash Joshi, editor of Jansatta, who has been writing on the topic since the Lok Sabha elections, painted a rather dismal picture of the media’s lure for lucre.

P Sainath wrote an equally shaming piece in The Hindu detailing the journalism of commerce in the Maharashtra election. But while Prabhashji and Sainath did not name names, TheHoot, a media watchdog website, gave enough examples of the rampant corruption.

These are brave efforts but just small ripples that will die out soon because most media houses are on the take in this new route to revenue and those that are not follow a silly convention of not talking about malpractices by competitors. Contrast that with the tide of criticism the Washington Post had to face from the rest of the media when its publisher tried to commercialise an editorial event earlier this year. The Post was forced to apologise to its readers for breaching their trust, and it was not even selling news space.

You will never see such searing, inward-looking, self-policing in our media. That’s why it is worth asking ourselves once in a while: Are we deserving of the freedom we seek?

 As a CNN regular, I have always marvelled at their readiness to not just pick important stories from rival channels but also give them full credit and play in their own bulletins. That’s such a rarity in our own country. Here, if one channel or publication comes up with a national scoop, the others will pretend as if nothing happened for as along as they can avoid it. When they can’t, they will simply pick the story and run with it like it is the fruit of their “exclusive” labour (TV channels can do this with consummate ease) or simply jump into it without giving due credit to the publication/channel that broke the story.

Hundreds of great stories have died a premature death in our country because media rivalry prevents one from picking up and following the other’s scoops.

 This is about one such story in the Times of India: “Jairam (Ramesh) for major shift in climate; Writes to PM that India should junk Kyoto Pact, accept emission curbs (Delhi edition lead, Monday, Oct 19). It quoted from the Environment minister’s October 13 letter to make the point that Jairam was proposing a complete reversal of India’s position. Just two months ahead of the Copenhagen talks this attempted reversal was like the Pokhran of India’s climate change with national and international reverberations.

This story needed to be followed up by everybody because if the shift happens, it can have long time implications for India’s growth story. As it happened, all newspapers followed it (I did not track the channels on this) but only to dismiss it and deny TOI the credit for a rare scoop.

Honestly speaking, they were only paying back TOI in kind because it was the TOI which started the trend of not naming any brand in its pages other than its own. Till about the late 80s or early 90s all newspapers extended the journalistic courtesy of acknowledging each others’ scoops by naming the rival which scooped them, a sort of professional doffing of hat for a good job well done.

The TOI threw this tradition to the winds because it did not want lesser papers to benefit from its unmatched and ever-expanding reach. It thus introduced us to such pathetic euphemisms as “reports in a newspaper”, “reports in a section of the press”, etc. Over the next couple of years, one by one all papers started returning the favour to TOI. So, no sympathies for TOI; if anything they deserve it.

But this is not about the TOI, this is about the readers of the other papers. The allegiance of every media organisation is to the paying reader who must get the correct picture on matters of national and international importance. The Jairam Ramesh story was one such. It talked about the crucial issue of climate change and India’s commitments to emission cuts that would impact our future for decades, if not centuries.

Any newspaper that claims to be a credible medium of information on serious national issues had an obligation to its readers to join the story and examine if indeed India was on the cusp of a drastic change in stance on climate change, why it was changing, what factors have caused the shift and whether it would be in India’s interest or otherwise. None of that happened.

The Hindustan Times, TOI’s principal rival in Delhi, took it upon itself to rubbish the TOI’s report in four short paragraphs on page 1 the following day (Tuesday, Oct 20, Delhi edition). In a “we-would-rather-believe-a-minister-than-the-TOI” kind of tone, it dismissed the TOI’s “major shift” claim by calling it just a “nuanced shift”. Of course, it cut out all references to the political uproar the TOI’s report caused in the Congress party and the Opposition and the extreme discomfiture to Jairam that caused him to issue feeble retractions.

The HT report neither named TOI nor referred to its previous day’s scoop. So there was absolutely no provocation, no context and no reason why it occupied costly real estate on page 1. But there it was, the HT, appearing more eager than Jairam to deny the TOI story.

I am not saying that it was HT’s job to validate TOI’s story. But once Jairam himself did not deny the existence of the letter or the contents of it as reported by TOI, it needed to quiz Jairam on his claim that TOI got it all wrong, that he was not laying the ground for a shift in India’s stand. For that it needed to interrogate Jairam and expose TOI’s poor skills at English comprehension. Instead it chose to take Jairam at his word and that’s just not good enough.

That sad narrative repeated itself in The Hindu and The Indian Express, too. They also took the HT route to this story of tectonic shift in India’s position by simply parroting Jairam’s protestations without bothering to put him through the trouble of mandatory questioning. Both the papers, of course, did not name the TOI.

Mail Today was one paper that showed it had a mind of its own. In a detailed report titled “New Delhi’s green policy gets fuzzy” it quoted Jairam’s earlier letters and public utterances to show that something was definitely up. But though it was less believing of Jairam, it refrained from naming the TOI preferring to say “Jairam…was reported to have written to the PM”.

The best coverage of the political avalanche after the TOI story came from one of India’s most transparent and ethical newspapers, Mint. There were many lessons for the big daddies from the way this baby of a newspaper covered the story. Firstly, it did not shy away from acknowledging the TOI’s scoop. Secondly, it refused to buy Jairam’s version rubbishing TOI. Thirdly, it quoted extensively from its own earlier interviews with Jairam wherein he had clearly articulated the same major shifts that the TOI said he recommended to the PM. And lastly, it did such a detailed story in such simple terms that even a climate change ignoramus such as me understood the whole issue.

So, I just have this to tell HT. If you have to copy anything from any paper, copy the ethics, the efficiency, the transparency and the new spirit of journalism from your own Mint, not the opacity of the Times of India.

Time to change this journalism of jealousy. Your reader deserves better.

Things are looking up at the Time of India. The country’s biggest and richest media house, which rang the alarm bells first with an unprecedented round of blood-letting last year, has just announced the end of recession. Ravi Dhariwal, CEO, wrote an endearing letter to all his staff to inform them that the management has decided to put some money in their pockets ahead of Diwali, a sort of bonus payout.

That is great news, not just for the Times staffers, but all of us in the media because when TOI cut costs, salaries and careers, all with equal remorselessness, that was enough excuse for many lesser mortals to blindly follow suit. So, the TOI retracing its steps is decidedly good news because there’s a chance the others might ape the TOI once again.

Except that this time, too, you definitely don’t want your managements to take the TOI’s cue. To understand why, first read some excerpts from Dhariwal’s letter:

“Dear Friends, Last time I wrote to you, a few months ago, we were in the midst of a perfect storm. On the back of astronomical newsprint prices, and our own expansion, our costs had galloped. As this was happening, Advertising revenues skid on fears of an impending recession. For the first time in many years, we saw a severe margin compression. For a few months we actually lost money. It was clear that we needed to take a serious course correction.

“We took several measures to restore the company back to some semblance of financial health. We cut unnecessary expenditures, postponed some of our future projects, scouted the world for cheaper newsprint and also trimmed our organization. Looking back, it was one of the most difficult periods in my career…

“All-in-all, I feel a lot more optimistic about our future, even in the short and medium term… The way you all rallied forth makes me absolutely sure.

“With this background, I am happy to inform you that our VC (Samir Jain) and our MD (Vineet Jain) have asked me to do something very pleasant. We are going to make an advance pay out of 1/3rd of the TVP (target variable pay) amount planned for the year 2009-10. You will receive this soon, in the next few days. This amount will be adjusted once we complete the year closing in July 2010 and work out the TVP due to us as per company policy. I am sure this money is welcome in our pocket. I also think this is a measure of our combined optimism about our future. I thought I should share this with you before we hit the festive season.”

Let’s understand “the very pleasant” bit a little better. The Times of India, sitting on profits of 150 years plus, cuts staff salaries across the board because the company “actually lost money” for “a few months” and decides to pay out 1/3^rd bonus of the next year in advance, to be adjusted later. Alternatively put, when the Times of India hurts, it takes staff salaries back to previous year’s levels and when it gets generous, it gives them one-third of one-tenth of their future earnings (assuming average variable pay is 10%)!

And the staff is supposed to be ecstatic because the “money is welcome in the pockets” before they “hit the festive season”. Yes, guys, now go and shop till you drop. What a mean trick! It would have achieved nothing more than to open old wounds of the staff. If managements of other media houses will not copy the TOI this time, it must be because such lack of tact and grace must be hard to match. 

Some would argue that this is between the TOI management and their staff so it’s none of our business. But it is. It is our business because the Times of India is the country’s most widely consumed media and what it writes in times of national crises such as recession is critical to us. The media, led by the Times of India, needed to examine how much of the bad times corporate India faced was because of actual recessionary pressures and question how much of it was caused by corporate day-dreaming, mindless expansions and outright greed. It needed to question why it is always that the top screws up, but the bottom pays up.

But none of that happened because the media houses, led by the TOI, were themselves guilty of committing the same grave errors at the top for which the staff at the lowest end paid dearly. For example, it was the Private Treaties that delivered the biggest blow to the TOI’s health. The top thought up the Private Treaties route to riches. We all know who paid when the crisis came.

Similarly, NDTV went into all kinds of unwise expansion plans and sunk in hundreds of crore in bad projects. While it ended up being no where in its new businesses, it became an also ran in every news segment (English, Hindi and Business news) and completely botched up its MetroNation project. And when recession came along, it became a happy excuse to sack dozens of lower staff while not one CEO got the boot. In fact, in the middle of the sacking mayhem, it hired a sort of overall boss for NDTV Profit whose compensation could have equalled the cost of a dozen sacked employees or more elsewhere in the group.

That story repeated itself even in organisations that were not bleeding. AajTak and Zee News, the only two channels at the national level consistently raking in profits, held up hikes and cut back salaries respectively. Both these companies returned handsome profits even during recession but that has meant little good news for the staff (though Zee I know has reversed the 10 to 20 % salary cut). Little wonder then that corporate India’s profligacy and foolishness, that must have contributed in equal measure to their near-death experience of last year, went completely unquestioned by the media as a whole.

So, Mr Dhariwal, if your staff sees nothing “very pleasant” in your Diwali Dhamaka, don’t take it personally. You enjoy your Diwali.

 In 1987 the Times of India set in motion a process of deconstructing the Indian newspaper as we knew it up until then with the launch of the rather wordy Sesquicentennial (150^th birthday) Celebrations. Even though journalism became collateral damage (some would say it was the primary target) in its relentless march to superstardom, the Times of India did much more than just deconstruct the newspaper. It changed the game totally and completely.

It shelved the prevailing trend of periodic cover price increases with invitation pricing. It killed the standard 16/20-page paper forever with the fat infotainment supplements. It created a whole new generation of young readers. It hooked the women on to the newspaper, thus far a male bastion. It expanded the market like never before, made multiple-paper homes a possibility and introduced the concept of marketing and branding to the newspaper industry.

And above all, it changed the revenue model of the newspaper. In an era of tightly controlled circulations, it taught a hesitant industry to let go, pile up the readership numbers and make the advertiser pay up for the expanded reach. Whatever it did to journalism and content, it cannot be denied that more newspapers in India became profitable ventures because the Times of India showed them the way to the bank.

The bedrock of all the change was, of course, Samir Jain’s definition of news as the space between advertisements. That meant news took a severe beating. Style took precedence over substance and as the printed word competed for the attention of the 90’s MTV generation and today’s GenX, news became a collection of bits, bites and nuggets (the assumption being that nobody has time for more than 300 words). Between page 3, PR and pure advertising in the form of Medianet and Private Treaties, news was sent on a long holiday. 

That is why the Crest edition of the Times of India, launched three Saturdays ago, is such a surprise. It is a complete departure from everything that the Times of India has stood for in the last two decades.

Departure 1: News is NOT the space between advertisements. At least, not from the evidence of the first two editions of the Crest. Never before has Times of India given so much acreage for news. I missed the first edition but in the second, almost all ads were right hand full pages and text flowed on the left hand pages unhindered.

Departure 2: All readers are not consumers of knick-knacks. There is such a person as the consumer of long form journalism: The cover story on China spanned three pages and the spotlight story (Up Close) on Naxalism spread over two full pages. Up until now, if you wrote any more than 500 words in the Times of India you went home and emptied the sleeping pills bottle because the Jains would shoot you down the next morning anyway.

Departure 3: There is such a person as the consumer of journalism, full stop. Short or long, didn’t matter. All these years, the Times of India’s mantra was nobody cared for journalism except the journalist.

Departure 4: There is such a person as the consumer willing to pay top dollar for good content. It was the Times of India that increased page-count and decreased cover price so much that the readers could make more money by selling the paper in waste than get value by reading it. At Rs 6 for about 40 pages, Crest can proudly claim to the paper that is worth more than its weight in waste.

 The sum and total of these deviations or the breaking news of the month then is this: the Times of India is once again seeing merit in the power of content, even if only once a week. For a paper that led the revolution in trivialising news and dumbing down the newspaper, that’s no mean reversal, it is almost like reversing time itself or like the Times of India doing to journalism what the US is doing to Iraq: rebuilding the country after bombing it out of shape (and making money either way).

Twenty-two years ago, it was the Times of India that sniffed the restlessness of the upwardly mobile Indian and his exasperation with the politics-obsessed news business and gave the industry two decades of stunning growth. Twenty-two years later, it is again sensing an opportunity. Crest suggests a clear shift in the philosophy of the Times of India. That it is sniffing the future again.

It is too early to talk about the quality of the content of Crest. I definitely did not see sterling writing but quite liked the elegant, under-designed look of the paper and just loved the green of the masthead. Again, it highlights the shift in philosophy: substance over style. To me that is even more stunning because the Crest did not fall into the design dungeon like the Hindustan Times did a few months ago.

The HT decided to redesign an already well-designed paper without any great content upgrade. It’s been dressed up like a Christmas tree and the cherry-picking in the headlines (one or two words in red) is a meaningless exercise in trying to lend gravitas where none exists.

The industry will, of course, watch the progress of Crest with interest. I think we need stylishly delivered substance, long form journalism and brilliant writing more often than once a week, more like every day of the week. That is what will keep the inveterate lover of the printed word wedded to it. That is what will keep newspapers in business in an increasingly wired world.

So, I think: For more papers to believe in the power of content, it is time.

So the government wants to file an FIR against two reporters of the Times of India for their report which said two ITBP jawans were injured in firing by the Chinese army.

The government claims that the report was wrong, that there was no firing by the Chinese and hence no question of any Indian soldier getting injured.

 Filing an FIR is definitely an extreme form of redressal but when journalists go wrong they must be prepared to face the consequences. If they need to go to court to prove their story, they must.

 Accountability demands that they take that trouble. But the problem here is not about accountability but about trust. When it comes to “trust” I would much rather go with the media, warts and all, rather than with the government. It’s not difficult for governments to destroy some records and create yet others when the heat is on. And when the matter relates to China the heat is really on because we have a simple China policy: the-wet-our-pants policy.

 Anyway, we needn’t take the government’s threatening noises too seriously. The lead report in The Hindu had two purposes: One, to tell our “friendly” neighbourhood bully that he is still the “dada” in the area and much as some television channels might want India to wipe out China, we shall never forget 1962, thank you. And, two, to tell the Indian media to back off because this time the frenzy seemed to have spread even to print. That done and the media completely silenced (it will be a while before you hear about Chinese transgressions again), we can rest assured that we have heard the last about the FIR against the Times reporters.

I brought up the FIR stuff not because the freedom of press was at stake (even the TOI did not seem to mind it, why would I?). I brought it up to point out the absurdity of threatening to sue two reporters for a supposedly wrong report just two weeks after two news channels reported complete lies during the YSR episode. (Times Now said their reporter had reached “the exact spot” of the crash. India TV reported authoritatively that YSR was alive and their source had personally spoken to him.)

Twenty days after the two lies, a lot has happened. The I&B Secretary met the National Broadcasters Association (NBA), the body that has taken upon itself the responsibility of self-regulation of TV news; I&B Minister Ambica Soni met the Broadcast Editors Association (BEA), the newly formed body to ensure responsible journalism; and the NBA had its board meeting. I’m not privy to what happened but at all these meetings the question of self-regulation must have come up. It always does. Like no meeting is complete without agreeing to meet again, no NBA meeting is complete without driving one more nail into the coffin of self-regulation.

Yes, a lot has happened since, except what needed to have happened: action against the two channels which are members of the NBA. I have not even heard of a reprimand from the NBA’s Disputes Redressal Authority headed by Justice J S Varma who pulled up India TV earlier for a far lesser “crime” and has since gone into deep slumber. Forget about Justice Varma, I’ll be stunned if even an internal memo has been issued in these channels pulling up people responsible or advising caution for future.

The net result of all that has happened, actually not happened, is that the two channels got away without as much as an apology to their viewers. If the cost of telling blatant lies is guaranteed and instant industry amnesia, you can bet your life that we have not seen the last lie on television. All the NBAs and BEAs are only organisations that strive to save their skins.

Yes, television channels self-regulate. They “regulate” their urge to report an offending competitor for its misdemeanors because they expect the latter to look the other way when they are themselves in the box.

Hopefully, some day not too far into the future, Amibca Soni will read this unwritten code of NBA’s silence.

But the good thing about TV is: That in all the noise that goes by the name of Hindi news, there’s a show that is as soothing as Vinod Dua Live (NDTV India, 8 pm). Dua always used to read the news at this hour but it was turned into his show in January. Dua talks unhurriedly, works on his script (rather than wing it as he goes along), picks fairly good news stories, avoids screaming headlines and, this is unbelievable, keeps all that threatening, stolen music completely out. The show is like still waters in a storm, as unlikely and as welcoming. Hope enough whiners like me watch it to make it work…I’m told it’s having problems at the Wednesday box office.

By B V Rao

“Our editors run their businesses without any commercial consideration. Let me give you an example. It came to me as a compliment from somebody the other day. On CNN IBN our film Welcome (a film we’ve taken a huge bet on) was reviewed by Rajeev Masand on his very popular show. Rajeev said: “The film is so bad that anyone who goes and sees it and enjoys it, I will personally pay for his psychiatric treatment.” This was his line, on our own channel, about our own film. There is no influence on our editorial…

I am an editor. I know that the only thing you sell as a news media company is credibility. The moment there is a question mark on your credibility, you’ve actually bartered away your entire asset.”

That was Raghav Bahl, managing director, Network 18 Group, in an interview to exchange4media late in 2007. I remember citing this example to support the line that there are still businesses in the news media that believe every square inch of real estate need not be sold to make a venture successful.

But alas, Bahl’s friends are not watching his channels or Bahl’s friends are not telling him any more; there has been a steep fall from those lofty editorial ideals. One Sunday afternoon (4.30 pm) during summer CNN IBN ran a full half-hour paid show on L M Thapar University. It paid glowing tributes to the university (which is ok, we do that these days even without getting paid!) but the highlight of the 30 minutes was how the channel tried to hoodwink the viewer.

Firstly, it did not mention, not even once, that it was a fully paid-for feature wherein a client such as L M Thapar University would sponsor every bit and byte of eulogy.

Secondly, the feature was put together by Paras Tomar. Tomar was one of CNN IBN’s most recognisable faces in its birth years but quit some time later. Either by design or by default, the channel’s marketing team seemed to have roped him in to do the feature (a damn good one he did, I must admit) so that the cycle of deceit would be complete.

Without any disclaimers from the channel and with a familiar face doing the reportage, the average viewer would think that it was a fully legitimate editorial assessment of the university by the channel. God knows how many parents and students invested their monies and futures on the university based on that illegitimate half-hour.

Network 18 is now a news and entertainment media conglomerate. Its many arms keep promoting each other, which is ok, but many times they forget the “disclosure” clause. World over, honest and transparent news channels “disclose” their filial links when they report about group companies. Rarely so in India (“Mint” is one definite exception) and definitely not so on CNN IBN and IBN 7.

Some time in June, when the Star Plus’ nine-year domination was hanging by a thin thread and all that Colours needed was a push and shove to dislodge the former, CNN IBN hosted a prime time show (8.30 pm) on the seismic changes in Prime Time entertainment. On the face of it, the channel took a detached editorial perspective but the subtext was clear: half an hour of plug for Colours.

Everything was about Colours, Colours and Colours from the theme of the discussion (“no single channel is guaranteed to stay at the top”, a taunt for Star Plus) to the thrust of the discussion (“Colours has changed the GEC scene with Balika Vadhu”) to the choice of the guests (Ashvini Yardi, programming head, Colours, who spoke of Balika Vadhu as “creativity at its peak” and Rajeev “what’s-his-connection-to-TV-serials” Masand). For form’s sake they had Smriti Irani as the third guest and Masand, to his credit, did not plug for the group channel.

It was patently dishonest of the channel not to disclose its lineage. Especially because there was a legitimate provocation for a half-hour show as Colours had indeed caused seismic changes in the genre. A disclosure would have actually added to that legitimacy but, no, we have to steal even that which is legitimately ours.

As you can see, I’m not unused to Network 18 news channels deviating from base principles as defined by Bahl in that interview. So, it needed to be a deviation of giant proportions to shock me. I got my shock about two months ago on IBN 7 (and have been getting it every day since).

As important as Bahl’s answer was Anurag Batra’s question: “With business interests in multiple areas, how does one support other ventures from the group without interfering with editorial integrity of an individual media product?” (Anurag also asked Bahl about private treaties, but I have omitted it for this discussion.)

Thus you can see that the basic question was about how the Network 18 group manages its cross-promotions without the “editorial integrity of an individual media product” being compromised. That “integrity” was what Bahl was illustrating so eloquently when he gave the Rajeev Masand-Welcome example.

Well, at nine thirty every morning (except Sunday and Monday) I wouldn’t expect Raghav Bahl to be watching IBN 7. But he should. For, here is an example of the grossest form of cross-promotion that makes a mockery of the “editorial integrity” of IBN 7. Five days a week in this slot, IBN 7, a licenced “news” channel of the group, plays the recording of the entire Balika Vadhu episode of the previous night!

Yes, thirty minutes of a prime time entertainment serial, just plucked from Colours and played on a news channel, almost frame by frame. The ad breaks in a news channel are more and longer so they eat up about 5 minutes of last night’s Balika Vadhu. I stumbled on this abomination some time in July and it’s been there regularly. The average length of Balika Vadhu on Colours is 20 minutes. I have clocked IBN 7 playing, on an average, 15 minutes of it going up to 18 on the odd day.

It’s all done with a ridiculously mock seriousness to make it look like a “news” story. It has a story “sting” (the name and overall branding of the story which appears before and after every ad break), “live” anchor-links, voiceovers and headlines in the normal IBN 7 style running up and down. For example, the first day I caught it, this was the hilarious run of headlines: Suguna ne ki bagawat (Suguna rebels). Suguna par nahi chala Dadisa ka hukm (Dadisa has no hold over Suguna), Ek hi thaali me khane se kiya inkar (Refused to eat in dinner plate used by husband), Shyam ne diya Suguna ka saath (Shyam backs Suguna), Bigad gaya Jagdish (Jagdish has gone astray).

In the middle of all that, the announcement: Balika Vadhu sirf Colours par; somvaar se shukrvaar raat 8 baje (Balika Vadhu only on Colours; Monday to Friday 8 pm). That’s a lie. They must now start advertising it for IBN 7 at 9.30 am Tuesday to Saturday.

And then that comic sequence of stings. The “Dukhi hain Suguna” (Suguna is sad) story sting would be followed each time by the channel’s signature sting “Khabar, har keemat par” (News, at any cost).

All channels have an afternoon show that is devoted to a general update on what’s happening on serialdom. IBN 7 has its own show at 1.30 pm, but chooses to showcase Balika Vadhu as a news story every day. This kind of transgression of news space must be hard to find anywhere in the world. It’s great credit to Star News and NDTV India that they have resisted similar urges.

Here, we are not talking about disclosure. When a news channel is openly ducking the law (news channels should not be airing GEC serials) and cheating its viewers (by inventing news around last night’s stale soap) you don’t care about disclosure. You care about closure. A closure to the farce called the Balika Vadhu news show.

It’s time for that friend to call Raghav Bahl again.

By B V Rao

As the first family of Indian politics let the cameras get up close and personal, it was Rahul Gandhi who stunned me with his manner and maturity. For years Rahul has had to live with the tag of the prince who didn’t deserve his heredity. But in three press conferences in three weeks (the last in Delhi on Monday), Rahul showed he has emerged out of the shadows of his family to be his own man. That prompted me to write this open letter to his mother imploring her to end his political internship. It’s a lament of a voter who thinks the Congress has passed up an opportunity to project somebody fresh, energetic, idealistic and engaging in this election of non-choices.

Dear Soniaji,                   

I hope you saw Rahul Baba’s performance at his Delhi press conference on Monday and his two earlier ones in Kochi and Kolkata. He must have grabbed the attention of many who have been dismissing him as the “permanent PM-intern”, lacking in Rajiv’s charm and Priyanka’s assumed magic. At the Rao household, though, he got much more than attention. My wife has switched sides, I am swaying (two days before voting) and my teenage son asked me: “Why don’t they make him PM?”

Yes, Soniaji, Rahul is connecting. If he was not electric, he certainly was a revelation. He was suave, sensible, relaxed, confident and in control. He smiled warmly, joked and even took intelligent post shots at Advani-ji and the Left. He did not duck any questions and answered all with a degree of self-assuredness which we miss in your Chosen One (Manmohan-ji). He came across as earnest, honest and engaged the viewer like few politicians can today.

Rahul put up a spirited defence of Manmohan-ji and took even the most inconvenient question — about dynasty politics – without squirming or denying (what a change from the political culture of every party and leader to deny the obvious). He said one became a politician based on who one knew, or who one’s parents were. “Hamne Punjab aur Gujarat mein yeh tod diya hai (We have broken this nexus in Punjab and Gujarat),” he said proudly. “In three to five years you will see a new set of Congress leaders emerge, they are a brilliant set of young people,” he said with paternal pride. His eyes lit up, his chest pumped up. He even ticked off a woman journalist for being dismissive of his efforts. “It’s emotional for me,” he said. We understand, because it is not easy to rebuild the Youth Congress – that political nest for 30 plus history-sheeters of academics who fail exams just to keep their “youth” tag and hostel room!

At his Kochi press meet earlier, Rahul even managed the impossible by convincing us Manmohan-ji is actually very youthful. “Youth is not about age. If a man can look ahead into the future, he is young whatever his age. Manmohan-ji got us the energy deal, that’s looking 30 years into the future. In 1991 he brought in liberalsation, once again looking way into the future.”

Brilliant argument, but reality hit home within minutes when Manmohan-ji took the mike. Times Now cut live from Rahul to Manmohan-ji’s press meet in Mumbai. In just three short sentences, Manmohan-ji blew the “youthful” argument away by imploring questioner after questioner after questioner: “Can you speak louder please? Can you speak louder please? Can you speak louder please?”!

You do Rahul a disservice, Sonia-ji, by letting the impression persist that he needs more grooming and allowing people to continually wonder if you should have pushed Priyanka instead. Worse, Rahul himself has started believing in this. “I will refuse to be PM, I don’t think I have the experience,” he said at the Kolkata conference.  

There are two ways of looking at this experience thing, Sonia-ji.

One, it would help to remember Sonia-ji that even Manmohan-ji seems to be woefully short of it. Why else would he deflect every major policy issue to Pranab-da? Two, if Rahul had all the experience, what would Pranab-da do? It hardly matters, does it, if Pranab-da is heading 50 GoMs under Manmohan-ji or 100 GoMs under Rahul? If the idea is to drown Pranab-da in so much work that he has no time to think of higher office, doesn’t the Rahul option work better?

There is a third aspect to this experience argument, Sonia-ji. In his first term as PM, Manmohan-ji had to make just one stopover at 10, Janpath, on the way to work. If he becomes PM for another term, he will have to make an additional stopover at 12, Tughlak Lane (Rahul’s house). Would that not need experience, Sonia-ji? Or, is it your “experience” that backroom PMs don’t need experience?

As I said, Sonia-ji, Rahul’s consummate TV performances have caused me to sway. But my problem is this: If I vote for Rahul, I get Manmohan-ji! And Antony-ji. And Antulay-ji. And Arjun-ji. And whichever other septuagenarian-ji you choose to pull out of the woodwork-ji. So why not the octogenarian Advani-ji? (Thus I continue to sway rather than swing.)

I can’t get this, Sonia-ji. Just how long do you think Rahul’s growth phase is going to continue? As you can see, nothing, not even Manmohan-ji’s economy, can grow for ever. I know expectations are low during a recession but at what rate do you think Rahul is growing? Can’t be the Hindu rate of growth (you are a secular party). So, if he has been growing even at the rate of the Indian economy in the last five years, that’s a fair clip and he’s quite a big boy by now!

Believe me, Sonia-ji, Idiot it might be, but the Box doesn’t lie. Rahul has earned his spurs. Rahul bada HO gaya, Sonia-ji!

Venkat, as the author is known, takes a week off from media-bashing to write about what he sees as Rahul Gandhi’s political coming of age because the channels almost allowed the event (the transformation of the Gandhi scion from a political novice to party’s central campaigner) pass off without much notice. Unless, of course, you think pointing that out is in itself media-bashing!

Last week, I posted my article (Newspapers and the importance of underwear – Part I) on Facebook with the status update: What’s the connection between a newspaper and underwear? “They both become stale in a day?” responded my brother.

Pithy as it was, it made me think. That relationship with underwear is in danger of snapping. If newspapers do not undergo a drastic content overhaul, they will not last even a single day, they will be born stale. They are already pretty close to it, peddling stuff that has already been chewed up and spat out by TV/web.

Not just that, TV is beating newspapers to their own stories, showing them what a story is and how to hype it. Here are three recent examples that made ripples in the country:

1. Body search of President Kalam by Continental.
2. The deficient monsoon and threatened drought.
3. Scrapping of CBSE Class X Board exams.

The coverage of all the three stories followed a pattern that shows how print is conceding ground to TV. All the three stories were little single columns in print (Delhi newspapers). News channels lapped them up, played them up through the rest of the day and created quite a stir. Following morning, all newspapers played up these very same stories as lead or second lead.

Does that mean a story becomes big only when it passes through 24 hours of TV? Print is enormously more talented in its sweep, variety and depth of reportage, but has chosen to lean on TV’s weakness for survival rather than its own strengths. (As I have often said, TV is happy to keep print alive because the latter acts like its unpaid wire service.) I have not known of one paper that by design has decided to reduce yesterday’s headlines to just updates and pool all its best stories on Page One to send out a clear message: we are not yesterday’s TV! If this sounds like an outlandish idea, look at the lengths to which Time magazine is going to preserve its base. It has come up with ‘Mine’, a special, customised, experimental edition for about 50,000 readers.

Where are our ideas? Who is doing anything new in print? Remember, the last major churn was forced on the industry by The Times of India. We all complained, but slowly that content formulation found its way into all publications. Design was ramped up, content was dumbed down as we began to service the MTV generation with bits and bytes. The logic was that with the onslaught of 24×7 general entertainment TV, reading habits were changing and people preferred the quickies.

That formula has served print well for 20 years. But 10 years into it (around 2000) came 24×7 news television, which does a better job of the bits-and-bytes presentation of news 24 hours before print.

So, shouldn’t somebody get up and ask if it is time again for a churn? This question assumes significance in another context, too. We all assume, and rightly too, that the romance of reading will never die, so newspapers will be around for a long time. If, at this moment, our only argument for the survival of print is this “romance of reading”, then are we doing right by the “reading romantic” when we supply them the same glib stuff that TV doles out? For example, when a Michael Jackson dies and it has played out on TV, does a reading romantic attain nirvana with a scrappy 200-word wrap up (and a gigantic graphic that contains tidbits) or with brilliant prose that explores the magic and mystery of the man?

If it is correct to assume that the future newspaper reader will come to print for substance and for the pleasure of reading, it follows that the newspapers should be able to deliver substance and the pleasure of a good read. That is why we should ask ourselves if the content plan of the last 20 years has served its time. And if it’s time for us to move from dumbing down to ramping up content.

Mint is the only paper that has dared to be different. A paper that has a good balance between looks and substantial reading, Mint has even tried the unthinkable and come away the better for it. Its Saturday paper comes wrapped within ‘Lounge’, the weekend special, and the cover page of ‘Lounge’ is occupied by their columnists! It works because it gives readers some intellectual stimulation.

As it looks ahead to its future, print can take comfort from the fact that it is the only news content medium with a viable business model. Television and web news companies leak money like sieves. If you count the number of national news channels currently making money, you’ll find you have too many fingers!

Ditto for web news portals.

So, it might seem that as long as these two young mediums are struggling to find their feet, print will be safe in its perch. Wrong approach. The health of individual TV or web news companies should hardly be print’s concern. It is their combined potential to suck advertising away from print that should cause worry. It has taken time, but some western countries are seeing large exodus of the advertising buck to online, and there is no reason why it cannot happen in India sooner than later.

A combination of circumstances is converging to make life tough for print. The country is ready for a technological leapfrog with 3G just around the corner. In one stroke, the biggest impediment to profitable commerce on the web, net-connectivity, will be gone. We still do not have an idea about the affordability of 3G, but considering the competition in that space, it is fair to assume that affordability will not remain an issue for too long. The promise of content in-your-hand, the resurgence of web and the prospect of generations of youngsters going through life without contact with newsprint cannot be great news for print.

That brings us back to my underwear analogy for the last time. Yes, just like underwear, print will survive. But the waist that wears the underwear will shrink dramatically, so print will have to recast and resize. As in everything else, one-size-fits-all underwear is a myth. And, remember, somewhere along the way even underwear transformed into lingerie!

(Venkat, as the author is called, insists the argument is his own and that no one else, such as exchange4media, should be hauled up for blasphemy.)

Also read:

Guest Column Newsmanic: Newspapers and the importance of underwear – Part I