Whatever, wherever, whenever..seriously, that is what I consider the condition of News Television in India.News is never being reported nowadays, its made, fabricated and produced.Gone are the days when the news meant a report of the 'important' events that happened nationally,or internationally.Today, news has got a serious lesson from its step-brother, the entertainment industry.News today is nothing less treated as Entertainment.With Page 3 parties, to Sting operations being the flavour of the Season, what more could you expect.
With a plethora of players jumping into this segment, the Indian News Channel business has been dumbing down more and more, and right when you think it can't get dumber than this, they just keep surprising you with more and even more dumber tactics of dumbing down the serious business of News,making new limits of getting dumber every time and breaking them the next time.
It all started with the fight over being the first News Channel of India, the controversy still persists, whether its Zee News(then Zee India TV which itself was EL TV prior to that) or STAR News(then headed by the Creative team of Prannoy Roy at NDTV).Nevertheless, things were still going great until the emergence of yet another player in the arena , TV Today's Aaj Tak.It had already carved its niche in the market with its Exit Poll shows and Morning Programming on Doordarshan .Aaj Tak's entry in the news market just in simple terms revolutionised the waynews got
marketed.From picking up local advertisers on , to broadcasting each and every happening in a street near you, News television was about to conquer not only our lives, but also of those who lived in celluloid.Star News came back in a new only Hindi Avatar, when its partnership with NDTV ended, the latter producing its own news channels,NDTV 24x7 and NDTV India(and NDTV Profit).News Programming however also witnessed certain big achievements like NDTV's Big Fight(hosted by Rajdeep Sardesai, who now is with some other News Channel).
The point is if we start counting the number of NEWS channels which are there ,if you can really count them, it would be the breaking news of the day.Last heard, CNBC TV-18 has its business channel bouquet expanded from just being Englih, to a Hindi Business Channel called Aawaz, SAB group has its own Janmat(which I do not know can be considered as a News Channel), Rajat Sharma(of Aapki Adalat fame and bad hair day infame) has India TV along with Tarun 'Tehelka" Tejpal, Channel-7,Zee's Business News Channel, and of course the innumerable breed of Sahara's Zonal news channels, ABP and Star's S
tar Ananda, to name of a few(very few).So, if there are so many in the list, what do they show.Everything and anything.From Sting operations conducted by hiddden-cams exposing not to be seen images of " wanna-be"s and starlets, to making Crime Night fighting a half an hour adult show(the credit though goes to Shoaib Illiyasi's India's Most Wanted).You get it all, plus you get your daily news too, may be sometimes.News is no News anymore.Its Reality TV.And if the West thinks, they have pushed the limits of Reality TV with their shows like Fear Factor, Survivor or even the channel Reality TV, think again.You should some time watch these Indian News Channels.You get a taste of the Spicy Indian Daily Life happening at a gully near you, all spiced up, just for you.Until then,keep glued to your TV sets, throw that remote away, and grab your POPkorn,because NEWS is entertaining.
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