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Is there any news?

Rajdeep Sardesai and Ashutosh reveal how they intend to maintain Channel 7 at high tide

PHOTOS: ANU PUSHKARNA

VIEWS ON NEWS Rajdeep Sardesai.

Ever surfed through the seemingly innumerable channels on television dishing out uncannily similar, often unappetising fare, and longed for the good old days when Doordarshan, and not the customer, was king? Well, may be not... After all it was a rather stuffed shirt existence. Therefore, as Channel 7 prepares to relaunch itself in a spanking new look , after its takeover by CNN-IBN, the challenge is all about how to keep the viewer from grabbing the remote and switching to another news channel. It seems like business as usual at Channel 7's studios in Film City, Noida, in the run-up to the launch.

"I think Ashutosh and the others are feeling it more," says CNN-IBN Editor-in-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai. "It's like expecting a baby."

As Ashutosh, Managing Director, Channel 7, laughs, Rajdeep, a veteran in Indian television journalism, adds, "There is always an excitement," but clarifies, "I'm the surrogate mother."

"I did six years in print. I never thought I would stay in television. I call myself as belonging to the penumbral generation. I'm not contemptuous of print and I don't think they should be contemptuous of TV."

With 24-hour news channels becoming the norm, however, the concept of news itself has undergone a change, and events that seem at times bloated out of proportion fill the need for providing news.

Says Ashutosh, "It happens with a newspaper also. Because they have 24 pages to fill. At least we have a one-hour wheel."

But Rajdeep agrees, "The concept of breaking news has broken down. There's a feeling unless your screen is always buzzing, people will not stay with you."

It calls for common sense, he feels. But common sense is not always easy to come by. In the competitive atmosphere, "it is not just the market that is cluttered, our minds are cluttered too."

So how does Channel 7 plan to project itself? "We will be looking at hard news. There is a dilution in the news channels, especially in the Hindi channels. It has to have the sharp edge it has lost," explains Ashutosh.

Ashutosh.

Rajdeep adds, "I think people come to television for news. In the clutter we forget our DNA. Also, (the concept of) what constitutes news is changing. Everything the Prime Minister says in Vigyan Bhawan is not (necessarily) news." By way of example, he says a story about severe traffic jams or water logging in Mumbai would be more worthy of major billing than a report on the Office of Profit controversy, since the former affects ordinary people.

It may sound like localising the coverage, but, counters Rajdeep, "I think a story is a story. I don't think a good local story will not be watched by others. Packaging is everything."

The challenge, explains Ashutosh, is how to make a local story into an international story. Key issues like infrastructure readiness affect all viewers, not just Mumbaikars.

It is all about credibility too, agree both. And how a channel follows up a story, since in the scramble for grabbing viewers and TRPs, channels often skip from one sensational or interesting story to another, leaving the public to guess at the subsequent events, or forget and move on too.

Then, if journalism is literature in a hurry, TV is more so. Research often gets the short shrift. "I think there is a tendency to not give the story a concept," admits Rajdeep as he concludes, "The ultimate star of a news channel is news."

ANJANA RAJAN

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