Comments on: India’s own news channel: India TV

By: HemantB

HemantB — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 06:19:44 +0000

Good article to understand the dynamics of Indian NEWS Channels.
I agree with what jagdish has said.

@ppl opposing India TV
Even if 0.1% of our population is watching India TV, that amounts to more than 1 M. And if one does not like it, he/she always have an option to change the channel…NOM

@ppl supporting India TV
I have also watched a few programs but I find them more misleading then informative. If an illiterate(not going by the Indian Govt. Literate Criteria) starts making decision on the basis of what he/she is seeing, then it will be dangerous for the society on a whole.

By: Deepak

Deepak — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 04:39:59 +0000

Nice post. I am reading the 1st post which is giving positive feedback on these type of channel. Frankly speaking, as far as business is concerned, they have just picked up the right nerve of the client. They know, what can be sell, and what cannot be. There are more 20 news channels, and viewer dont bother much which channel they are watching for news. So, for staying in this business, they targeted the religious audience and they succeeded as well.

By: jagdish

jagdish — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 04:17:06 +0000

@Ashutosh
Nice article.
Guys please take this article from marketing and business point of view not as what is role of TV channels?
And indirectly these news channels are controlling indian population as per recent discovery of Indian Government so chill.

By: Kaushik

Kaushik — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 01:56:26 +0000

I watch India TV for pure entertainment value, just like I watch Rakhi ka Swayamvar or Splitsvilla.

So, there comes another source of viewership, India TV waalon. Keep up the good work. I love those half hour shows like “mahakaal ka doot” and “magic baba”

By: India's own news channel: India TV « Strat. In - Strategy … | India today

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 18:26:18 +0000

[...] Here is the original post: India's own news channel: India TV « Strat. In – Strategy … [...]

By: Atul Mathur

Atul Mathur — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 16:57:40 +0000

Ultimately what matters to the news channel is advertising. That’s why they are there. When they go bargain with media agencies, they have to make a sales pitch to them saying these are the kind of people we cater to, and thus give us ads of this age group and this sort of requirement. And the media agencies give it to them. If they decide to become an actual news channel, then they are going to be competing directly with bigger players and there’s no chance of a fight back. As very clearly mentioned by Ashutosh, it is the focus strategy (market segmentation)they employ.

Another point, regarding the issue raised in the comments section about the existence of such channels – things just keep getting murkier with such focus. It’s like an addiction. People wanting to watch such news just keep getting more absorbed in such news, and unless they get more of it they can’t enjoy the channel, hence the channel itself has to consistently come up with such news, else it is gone, because a competitor might then take away all the points with TV rankings and with it the Advertising. A very similar trend is now coming up with newspapers I think – Another example is Times of India newspaper, with its city editions (for example Bombay Times, Pune Times) – talking about crap Bollywood news just because people have got so used to reading that useless talk that Times of India continues to need to spend on this aspect. Same with other newspapers as well. Stuff like “Shahid and Vidya have an affair”, and the article ends with how someone was fooled into believing that and it is actually untrue.

By: AT_korvus

AT_korvus — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 11:07:30 +0000

^Media is not supposed to feed us what we want, and democracy is supposed to be perfect and religion is supposed to make us all better human beings.

Keyword here is “supposed”.

This is why online news is so much more awesome, I can pick and choose what I want to know about. Hopefully, this trend will increase and force the news channels to create better content.

By: Sachin Uppal

Sachin Uppal — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 10:56:02 +0000

1stly not sure about intentions of writing this article.
2ndly the points highlighted about India TV hitting on a certain category of “Tending towards Entertainment” I agree.

However, few things which completely makes me hate this:
1) Why do they call themselves as NEWS? They should come up with another category like “NewTainment” or something and not disrespect the journalism and responsibilities of media.

2) Half hearted imitation from other channels due to the rising TRPs (of this s#!$) is a danger to the nation’s ability to differentiate between news and entertainment which can lead to insensitivity or compassion-less approach towards many sensitive incidents.

3) Scriptwriting happens in Entertainment Business…if NEWS were supposed to be entertaining then why call them NEWS at all? Call them EntertaiNEWS.

4) Media is not supposed to “just feeds us what we want” instead they should present the truth and support people, organizations etc who are working towards making things better.

No wonder why people who are still “Rational” are moving towards online media to get their news updates.

By: kannada songs

kannada songs — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 10:34:04 +0000

all channels sucks to be honest

By: AT_korvus

AT_korvus — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 10:31:47 +0000

@Mathai: a very valid concern. In fact, I just read in the paper that stated that a large number of people (especially young people) believe in superstitions. The media just feeds us what we want, and religion is the opium of masses, and superstitions are merely an extension of that.

And no, I believe as a society, we are progressing beyond a lot of these stupid superstitions. A couple of hundred years ago, sailing across the seas was taboo since the Hindu priests decided that anyone who left the shores of India would be declared unclean. However, the problem is that the majority of India lives in Tier 3 and villages, and it will take some time for rational thinking to fully permeate to that level.

(Of course Tier 1 isn’t the hotbed of rational thinking either, considering the things that are done by hooligans in name of religion and culture)

I believe that this entire discussion warrants an entire article, and maybe the author can explore these issues and write one