I am an avid watcher of happennings in news media and so when the season's first awards for news television were given I was watching them closely. Here is my 'analysis' of this year's News Television Awards given by IndianTelevision.com.
(Complete list of winners here)
A look at award categories makes you wonder why we have got so many variants of 'Best Channel' awards. There are three kind of best channels if you please:
> Most Popular (Hindi/English) News Channel
> Numero Uno (Hindi/English/Business) News Channel
> Best News Channel (Critics' Choice) - (Hindi/English/Business)
Can someone please explain to me what is meant by Critics' Choice awards for news television? Is News TV a cinematic experience that is appreciated differently by different people hence difference between jury's and critics' choice?
And why are 'Most Popular' channels being awarded? Are they not making enough advertising revenue by flashing their TAM Ratings. (If you didn't know, this award was actually based on TAM ratings!) And that is making even more confused. Times Now keeps on showing off higher TAM rating than NDTV 24x7 and CNN-IBN then why was NDTV 24x7 and not Times Now given the 'Most Popular English News Channel' award? (Was it because Times channel was to be conferred with Best News Channel (Critics' Choice) English award?). 'Aaj Tak' was most popular hindi news channel.
Whatever is meant by 'Numero Uno' channel, CNN-IBN and NDTV India won in english and hindi categories respectively. Modesty is one factor that you should not associate with CNN-IBN. A day after their victory, the news headline on their site was: 'Deja vú: IBNLive.com, CNN-IBN win NT awards again '. Ohh such arrogance! NDTV India was sober as always in their celebration.
But what was most surprising was that three channels shared Numero Uno business channel: NDTV Profit, CNBC TV18 (which also won critics' choice award for best business channel) and CNBC Awaz!
Overall NDTV channels won 25 of the 47 awards and Network 18 channels won 21 (why was news scroller on CNN-IBN claiming that Network 18 has won maximum awards?). UTVi, News X and Voice Of India were chosen as the channels to watch out for in the coming year.
Shekhar Suman managed to get Star News on the tally being best anchor for an entertainment show. Zee News anchor Romana Issar got 'The Indiantelevision.Com Editor's Special Award for Excellence as an Anchor'.
Talking about Hindi channels, NDTV India eclipsed every other channel in programming as well as anchors. It won 13 awards far ahead of Aaj Tak (4), IBN 7(3), Star News (1) and Zee News (1).
Among English channels CNN-IBN(11) lead the pack followed by NDTV 24x7 (8) and Times Now(1) . NDTV Profit (4) won the contest against CNBC-TV18(3) and CNBC Awaz (3) in the business channel arena.
While it was heartening to see the only hindi 'news' channel win really big, I felt the english awards being a tool for appeasing everyone! Let's hope that winners prove themselves worthy of awards and runners up give them a run for their money in coming year, because a good media is good for everyone.
3 comments:
These awards are of no value because the media in India is biased and corrupt.
Some regional language channels, from almost all the parts of the country are most of the times better in their reporting, but loose out because of the "money" and "marketing" factor.
Interesting ... another aspect is News dished out is highly opinionated.
I prefer BBC :) but Mostly havent watched one for a long time. I dont think most of the news matter ... Important bits will always find there way to me :) sometimes with your gtalk status message :)
~amritanshu
Anonymous:
I think it wrong to paint entire media in one stroke saying 'media in India is biased and corrupt'.
I agree that what CNN-IBN did was sufficient to raise fingers, but still you can't say that everyone is corrupt.
I have seen regional channels in South. Almost all major channels have political alliance. Every party has got one mouthpiece channel. In that sense they can't be called unbiased as well!
Amritanshu:
I agree with you. And that is true with specially hindi and regional channels. Objectivity has become the greatest victim of TRP race.
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