CNN NEWS 18--too consumer oriented?

Cyrus Baroacha's daily rib tickler: how far  can it  go without upsetting the powers that be? 

 

It seems some sort of a rite of passage that periodically engulfs the world of TV news. Every now and then, the name of a network changes, along with its logo and format, and editorial content gets tweaked, shaking jaded viewers out of their slumber to unmute the mute button on their remotes, momentarily see, gasp, and surf on. Last year in June, Headlines Today in a burst of crimson glory was retagged India Today. In a much more sotto voce way, NDTV 24x7 , ‘the channel you can trust’, pursuing a whiter shade of pale, gave up its ruddy complexion in favour of a more anaemic image in 2013. Most recently on April 18, CNN-IBN changed its hyphenated existence to become CNN News 18, with the CNN logo looking even more CNN-ish than it did before. 

Days before the launch, airing shameless, self-publicity promos which would have done Yash Raj Films proud — anchors facing barbed wires, or surrounded by skeletal cameras in a drought-laden locale — the network pressed the refresh button. Rejecting the current dispensation ruling TV news that anything is justified as long as it gets eyeballs, the voice over tells us that from now on ‘viewers will  becentre-stage;’ that they will be getting ‘journalism with passion’, and a channel ‘without an agenda’  and ‘without netapanels.’ If you squint hard enough you can see what the creative team is aiming at  — trustworthy, independent, prickly journalism. I can see how this will appeal to news junkies who still believe that these  buzzwords are the core values of good journalism.

Even I believe that whatever the TRPs say, that some viewers are tired of the calculated outrage seen on some channels. They are also sick of bipartisan, bad-ass anchors that make you feel like as if you are sitting so close to the speakers in a music fest that your stomach churns. But are these audiences really ready for a channel hilariously obsessed with itself, or news headlines wrapped in techno house music, or a news screen showing different coloured backgrounds to match separate news genres—red for politics, blue for sports and purple for entertainment and editorial content that is too, too consumer oriented?

 

So while NDTV 24x7 at eight pm on Tuesday is headlining India’s drought conditions; India Today is picking up on the return of the Kohinoor and Times Now and News X are hyperventilating on the Ishrat Jahan case and Samjhauta explosion investigations, News  360 on CNN News 18 is leading with how taxi services, Uber and Ola, are being rapped on the knuckles by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for imposing surge pricing because of the demand created by the odd-and-even car rule. (By the way, watch out for ArunodayMukharji, the bearded anchor, is a natch).

Turn to Zakka Jacob’s News @ 9, which kicks off a 20-minute discussion on the delays caused by developers in handing over flats to owners. By 9.48, It’s the News That Wasn’t, a daily spin-off from Cyrus Baroacha’s immensely hilarious, The Week that Wasn’t. In its weekly form, the show is a real rib tickler; in its daily incarnation, based on the Jon Stewart format, it is yet to take off and is a little gooey.  Granted, I have only watched two episodes but you have to wonder how far the show can go without upsetting the powers that be. Yesterday’s spoof on Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis shedding many kilos had me wondering whether a similar satire would have been done on how Mukesh Ambani’s son, Anant Ambani, has managed to recently lose 108 kgs in 18 months!  

Perhaps the most iffy show is Bhupendra Chaubey’s, with his inexhaustible reserves of confidence, ten o’clock offering  — Big 5 @10. ‘Curated by you, THE VIEWER ’  booms Chaubey, the slot is, wait for it, five top stories explained under five minutes. Yesterday’s five magic words were,  ‘Dalit Symbolism,’ ‘Penniless in Punjab,’ ‘Friend to Foe’, ‘Beware Chain Snatching’ and ‘Kapil 2.00.’ This is teenage news stuff, for viewers who read news on the go, and need quick capsules to swallow and regurgitate.  Gravitas is added in the form of comments from senior journalists, Ajoy Bose and Swapan Das Gupta, who along with Vir Sanghvi  and Ayaz Memon (also described on the channel’s website, for some reason, as Mumbai Maestro) are now exclusive to the network. Some not so clever product placement by Chaubey is also evident as he keeps referring to the app, Periscope, which probably explains why you cannot see a live stream of the channel unless you have downloaded this app. Is this a world of retrofitting news?

Primetime CNN News TV 18, in its new avatar looks and feels very marketable. Unforgivably, its primetime is also a male-fest. Apart from Shreya Dhoundiyal there is no other woman primetime anchor. I wonder why?  Its screen, like India Today’s, looks like a website, There is loads of information blocked off. The right hand panel gives you everything--headlines, weather updates, trending stories, and even promos of News 18 anchors, looking like ads for Raymond Suitings. Either you will enjoy this cockiness or it will get on your nerves making you go to the tried and tested NDTV 24x7.

But make no mistake; the network changed format is a reflection of the times. It’s for the person who doesn’t want to hear the news but wants to see news alerts as they work out or rush to work. There is a new battleground out there. It’s a world full of news aggregators like Google News and Flipboard.  Very different from the legacy media which we, of a certain generation, know and love so well. The channel has a nervous energy but it keeps news at room temperature. Consumer news, entertainment news, political news, sports news, news under five seconds, non-preachy news—check, check, check and check. Perhaps this is the new way to dominate the news world and also deal with online competition.

Will CNN News 18, have a right of centre, pro-business agenda as some critics anticipate? Will it look uncomfortably at issues of free speech and censorship? Only a detailed content analysis over a period of time will reveal that.  For now it has to depend on good story telling, and some savvy journalists who will not depend on sound bites or handouts.

 

Mannika Chopra writes on the media and can be contacted at mannikachopra@gmail.com