By Pradyuman Maheshwari

Ring-a ring-a ratings

Claims versus shoutings

Cops, CBI, advertisers & viewers frown

And we all fall down!

So here’s another take-off on our favourite nursery rhyme, partly courtesy a friend and fellow-columnist. But before you look at the graphs: here’s an exercise.

Fill in the Blank:

The News Channels genre is getting _______.

Since you have to putting the answer in your own language, choose whatever word you would like.

The numbers tell the story.

Here they are:

Please click on image if you find this unclear

If you prefer graphs, look at these:

May we alert you that these numbers are not validated from BARC. They have come in from two different sources. But we will update if necessary, when we’ve got it from BARC. Btw, we chose 2+ and not 15+/22+ AB one mn plus or all-India, because it was easier to compare with GECs.

The message is clear. News channels – in Hindi, Regional, English and Hindi Regionals (like MP, Bihar etc) need to do some soul-searching.

If they continue to fight, if they continue to not do the right things, there’s bound to be trouble. For themselves.

News channels owners, editors and managers need to stop fighting. The best of political and corporate forces have buried their differences. Many moons ago, India TV had exited the News Broadcasters Association for reasons that are best not recalled now. More recently TV9 quit the association and we heard of some talks of a possible litigation. So there’s no reason why NBA and NBF can’t combine forces. Call it something else if necessary. Rejig the set of officebearers. But it’s important to have a strong, joint force.

Be competitive. Stop fighting. Let’s stop putting each other’s images on telly. Let’s stop group media entities to participate in a ‘maaro saale ko’ campaign.

We’ve seen what’s happened thanks to all of this. It could only get worse. Serious.

Advertisers have not yet said goodbye, but if they see lower ratings, they could.

Enough said. Have a good weekend.

And this Dassera, Dussehra or however you spell it, let’s kill the (d)evils within us.