Indian News channels

Television is a very powerful media. It can easily impact and influence the minds of ordinary citizen. My own assessment of the quality of programs churned out by most of our channels is that all of them without exception are pathetically very poor in terms of quality of contents. There are approx 50-60 Indian channels in all languages. These channels can be categorized into 5 or 6 broad based categories. New channels, Reality shows channels, soap opera channels, Sports channels, Music channels, Movie channels etc. Since I see mainly news channels, I will focus my obervation on news channels only. Quality of new channels is determined by the coverage of news and reliability of the news contents. If you observe new channels minutely, you will be shocked to learn that almost 90-95% of contents is focused on domestic news and only a small fraction of total newstime is dedicated to foreign news. If you concentrate on domestic news only, you will find that out of 90-95% contents, almost 50-60% is reserved for Cricket and Bollywood both of which are unfortunately spreading like cancer in Indian society. During election time, of course the election news takes precedence over Cricket and Bollywood. What the news channels show day after day is in a nutshell insignificant news such as malfunction of the wardrobe of half clad models during Ramp shows, Private lives of actors and their affairs, Talk show on why Shah Rukh Khan is Number one actor in Bollywood, Latest Hindi Film Releases with clippings of songs, expert comments on topic such as “Will India emerge as world number one in ICC Cricket Ranking”. If Indian public is so much obsessed with Bollywood and Cricket, let there be a seperate channel dedicated for these two. Even the hard core news shown on news channel is biased, one sided, inaccurate and at best be termed as an opinion and not news. The news is so unreliable that two channels giving the same news give contradictory statements. They have stooped to such low level that they go to the extent of fabricating stories such as “Terror threats from Taliban” with graphic details of their training camps across the border so as to create sensationalisation and increase their TRP ratings . During 26/11 Terror attack, when the terrorists from across the border created mayhem in Taj, Trident, Oberoi Hotels in Mumbai and were busy firing indiscriminately and killing hostages who were holed up inside, all our Television crews were busy outside the hotels giving live telecast of this tragic incident non stop with commentaries to public and in the process were giving valuable clue to the perpetrators of this crime as to what our plans and strategies are to counter the attack. The commando operation could have been finished much earlier had there not been live Telecast. The Freedom of press in a democratic set up does not mean that you become so much insensitive and irresponsible that in a bid to increase your TRP, you don’t care about telecasting events that can jeopardise the security of the country. There is only one solution to curb this dangerous trend,impose censorship through a regulatory body. Self censorship works only in matured democracy where people understand their responsibilities. It won't work in our country. I suggest, a central agency like CRISIL should be formed and should be empowered to give ratings to Television channels based on the quality of software programming and contents. If a particular channel’s rating falls below the minimum rating fixed, it should be disqualified and banned from beaming the program. The common public glued to TV set is somehow reconciled with third grade programs. Has their taste downgraded to such an extent that they are unable to differentiate between the good and bad or is it simply callousness or apathy towards the quality of programs, I don't know.