News Broadcasting
MIB to implement TRP committee recommendations and bring back news ratings soon: Anurag Thakur
Mumbai: The union minister of information and broadcasting Anurag Thakur has said that the I&B ministry will ensure that the recommendations in the TRP committee’s report are implemented swiftly and news channels ratings are brought back to give relief to news broadcasters.
The minister was addressing the News18 India Chaupal summit held on 1-2 December. In conversation with News18 Hindi managing editor Amish Devgan, he said that broadcasters’ associations have shared their comments on the report within the given deadline.
The I&B ministry had reached out to broadcasters in November seeking their comments on the report by 30 November. The 39-page report highlights 20 recommendations to restore faith in the integrity of the TV rating system in India. The TRP committee was formed in response to the TRP scam that broke out in October last year where three TV channels were named by Mumbai Police for allegedly tampering with rating data.
The recommendations were aimed towards strengthening corporate governance at Broadcast Audience Research Council (Barc) India which is the premier TV audience measurement company in the country. There were also recommendations pertaining to the technical, technological, and regulatory aspects of the TV measurement system like the use of return path data (RPD), instituting a regulatory mechanism for media rating agencies, adopting an open data ecosystem, and moving towards a hybrid audience measurement.
The four-member committee included IIT Kanpur professor of the statistics department of mathematics and statistics Dr Shalabh, C-DOT executive director Dr Rajkumar Upadhyay and Decision Sciences Centre for Public Policy professor Pulak Ghosh and led by chairperson and Prasar Bharati chief executive officer Shashi Shekhar Vempati.
News Broadcasting
CNN-News18 to air live counting day coverage for five state election results on May 4
The channel is rolling out its biggest election coverage machinery yet for results day on 4th May
NOIDA: The votes have been cast. Now comes the reckoning. CNN-News18 is pulling out all the stops for results day on 4th May, when counting begins across five battleground states — West Bengal, Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Puducherry — in what promises to be one of the most closely watched electoral verdicts in recent memory.
The channel’s coverage, titled Battle for the States: The Verdict, kicks off at 7am and runs through the day across linear TV, connected television and YouTube. It is the culmination of CNN-News18’s multi-format editorial initiative, Battle for the States, which has tracked the polls from the beginning under the theme Road to Power.
At the operational heart of the coverage will be the Live Results Hub, the channel’s central command centre built to collate, verify and process real-time data flowing in from reporters stationed at counting centres across constituencies. The hub combines newsroom intelligence, analytics and on-the-ground reporting to deliver what the channel promises will be the fastest and most accurate results coverage in English news.
Leading the on-air charge will be primetime anchors Rahul Shivshankar, Anand Narasimhan, Aman Sharma, Nabila Jamal and Shivani Gupta. They will be joined by a wide panel of commentators including author Chetan Bhagat; GVL Narasimha Rao, senior leader of the BJP; Smita Prakash, editor of ANI; activist Saira Shah Halim; political analyst Sumanth C Raman; Abhijit Iyer Mitra, senior fellow at IPCS; Amitabh Tiwari, founder of VoteVibe; columnist Abhijit Majumdar; Nalin Mehta, managing editor of MoneyControl; political analyst Tehseen Poonawalla; senior journalist Subir Bhaumik; and political analyst Manojit Mandal.
Shivshankar, who serves as editorial affairs director at CNN-News18, set out the stakes plainly. “Counting day is one of the most watched events in the electoral cycle, where speed and credibility are tested in real time,” he said. “Battle for the States: The Verdict is built on that promise, combining ground reporting, sharp analysis and cutting-edge election technology to give viewers the clearest and fastest route to the verdict. On May 4, CNN-News18 will once again be the nation’s most trusted channel to witness democracy in action.”
Smriti Mehra, chief executive of English and Business News at Network18, framed the coverage in broader terms. “Elections are defining national events, and audiences turn to brands they trust in moments that matter,” she said. “CNN-News18 has consistently led from the front in every election coverage, and this special programming reflects the scale of our ambition and editorial strength.”
The channel has form here. It claims to have been India’s most preferred English news destination for election results for the past 20 years, covering everything from the 2024 general elections to the Delhi, Maharashtra, Bihar and BMC polls on the back of what it calls an “Always First, Always Right” record. Five states, one day, and a nation waiting for answers. The clock starts at 7am on 4th May.
