The facts are now clear on how television news channels earn their television rating points (TRPs). The modus-operandi include creating fake social media handles. The Mumbai Police stated on Thursday that it is zeroing in on three television channels for adopting foul means to gain more advertisement revenue for themselves. One of them is Republic TV which had recently gone hammer and tongs on the hashtag campaign #JusticeForSushant#. Allegations are that these channels resorted to “false narratives” and also bribed households to keep their channels on for the days together so that the TRP ratings would soar.
The Mumbai Police is already having a running battle with some media channels in relation to the Sushant Singh Rajput death case as also in other aspects and Maharashtra’s Shiv Sena-led government has been targeting Republic TV in particular in recent months, which in truen has been targeting Bollywood stars. Its been a virtual tug-of-war. Be that as may, the games that visual media channels play to be one-up on others are getting exposed; and this is bound to affect the credibility of the visual media as a whole.
Notably, the Supreme Court had recently taken a serious note of the manner in which TV channels resort to sensationalism to increase their TRP ratings and ad revenues, and asked the Union Government recently to come up with proposals to set matters right. The Centre’s response was that a bigger problem of sensationalism and objectionable circulation of news and visuals arose from social media, and these needed to be tackled first. This was argued also on the ground that established media are already guided by sets of rules and regulations.
Notably, the apex court has taken up the issue of irresponsible TV journalism again, when it spoke out against some TV channels that had allegedly sensationalized the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi earlier this year and “communalized” the Markaz to the extent that the organisers were blamed for spreading the pandemic in Delhi and beyond. By contrast, the print media are conducting themselves in a mature manner, for the most part. There are also occasions when the establishment goes out of its way to effect control on the media but this too is not a healthy trend.
The visual media in India, mainly the news TV channels, have progressively been acquiring a bad name also for the kind of poor content that they air. At the same time, it must be appreciated that TV channels have been doing a good job in exposing social evils like the Hathras gang-rape and killing incident as also the police high-handedness there.