Elections 2019
News18 India and CNN-News18 Gear Up for General Elections 2019
MUMBAI: Fierce regional battles and a re-energised opposition in last few months have paved the way for a blazing battle – the upcoming General Elections 2019. As the country prepares to elect the next government of the world’s largest democracy, News18 India and CNN-News18 have lined-up an extensive programming giving viewers an unparalleled access and insight into the elections.
Continuing the legacy of bringing the most incisive reportage on the elections, News18 India will present its General Election programming under the umbrella branding ‘Sabse Bada Dangal’. From covering high-decibel campaigns and rallies of political parties to questioning the politicians on substantive policy issues that affect the common man, the channel will telecast multitude of special shows. Starting 15 February, the channel has lined-up a comprehensive bulletin capturing major highlights and key stories from across the nation, related to the elections. The programming will also witness special edition of channel’s renowned shows – Bhaiyaji Kahin and Lapete Mein Netaji. While the former has a chaupal-cum-travelogue format providing an interactive platform to connect the voters and local leaders, the latter is a weekly ‘hasya kavi sammelan’ with prominent Hindi poets and satirists who will bring sharp sarcasm and a sense of humor to the political discourse. In the lead-up to the polls, News18 India has also planned live on-ground and in-studio debates from key constituencies featuring senior politicians to discuss about pertinent election issues through shows such as ‘Ye Desh Hai Humara’ and ‘Desh ko Jawaab Do’. Along with the special editions, the programming will also include profiling of the political leaders, exclusive interviews and wide ranging coverage on polling days and counting day.
CNN-News18 will delve into all aspects of the Lok Sabha elections with its special programming ‘A Billion Votes’. With its diverse formats and data-driven programming, the channel will bring up-to-the-minute updates throughout the election, keeping viewers apprised of the big moments as they unfold and scrutinise key policies and issues ahead of polling day. From daily shows like ‘Election Epicentre’ and ‘Setting the Election Agenda’ which will cover latest developments related to the elections to special on-ground shows such as ‘Reporter’s Project’ and ‘The Real Bharat’ that will witness seasoned reporters traversing across the length and breadth of the country, the channel will present its viewers with realities and voter sentiments from ground zero. From shows such as ‘Youngistan’ and ‘The Women Vote’ which will put a special focus on the youth and women voters of the country in order to ensure that their voice is captured and showcased to special programming like ‘Kings & Queens’ and ‘Election Yatra’ which will showcase the top leaders who will determine the outcome of Elections 2019, the channel is all set to provide its viewers power-packed programming. Offering a satirical round-up of the elections, ‘The Election That Wasn’t’, will feature Cyrus Broacha and Kunal Vijaykar who will look across the political spectrum, giving their own unique take on the election news and shenanigans. Known for its legacy of the most accurate and fastest results, CNN-News18 will provide an unmatched coverage on polling and counting day.
News18 India and CNN-News18 will deep dive into data with India’s only AI-driven election analytic tool called the ‘Magic Wall’. Powered by research done at the constituency level that can breakdown into LIVE results based on parameters such as industrial growth, farmer distress, millennial influence, government schemes impact, etc, the Magic Wall will provide an unparalleled experience to the viewers.
The programming will be led by the formidable editorial team of the channels. On News18 India, Kishore Ajwani, Deputy Managing Editor, Amish Devgan, Executive Editor and Prateek Trivedi, Senior Editor, will be joined by prominent experts like Ram Kripal Singh and Shesh Narain Singh. CNN-News18 will feature top anchors – Bhupendra Chaubey, Executive Editor, Zakka Jacob, Editor – Output, Anand Narasimhan, Deputy Executive Editor, Marya Shakil, Political Editor. Complementing them will be a panel of eminent journalists and political analysts like Swapan Dasgupta, Vir Sanghvi and Ajoy Bose to name a few.
The General Election coverage on both the channels will be further augmented by the extensive reach of the entire News18 Network. It will feature a range of interviews and debates with the biggest newsmakers, insightful conversations with experts and voters, alike as well as the wittiest and timeliest satire.
MUMBAI: With less than 10 days left for the most awaited General Election of India, where the country selects its next prime minister, global social media giant Facebook, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, took down around 700 pages for showing “coordinated inauthentic behaviour”, associated with various political parties, from its site.
The list of the pages taken down by the global giant from Facebook and Instagram under its refined social media policy for political campaigns included 687 associated with an IT Cell of the Indian National Congress (INC) and 15 belonging to Indian IT firm Silver Touch, which usually handles the duties for the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.
These pages were spending a hefty amount of money on promotions and advertisement. While the 687 accounts linked with Congress had spent $39,000 between August 2014 and March 2019, the 15 pages being associated with BJP had nearly double spends with $70,000 flowing from June 2014 to February 2019.
And it can very well be just the tip of the iceberg. It is no revelation that social media has been playing a prominent role in the political battles not just in India but globally for the past few years. In fact, the landslide victory that BJP recorded in the 2014 polls, probably the biggest ever in its decades-old history, has been significantly attributed to the smart use of social media as a tool to allure young voters.
And this year is no different. While all political parties are spending a considerable amount of money and manpower in refining their social media strategies, BJP is way ahead of the curve. Compare the amount spent by a collective of 687 pages with just the 15 that have been taken down by Facebook, and one can see the stark difference in the expenditures being incurred by the parties.
`While none of the pages revealed the identity of the source running these accounts and from where the money was pouring in to spend on these promotional activities, it is evident that the IT machinery of BJP is quite strong and refined. Given that its magic-bullet approach resulted in a success in 2014, it is obvious that the party will once again take the same route.
As per Facebook’s Ad Library, which includes data related to ads of political nature and relevant to national importance on Facebook and Instagram, political advertisers cumulatively have spent more than Rs 8 crore in less than two months and again leading the charts is BJP with top three accounts promoting it. One of the topmost pages called “My First Vote For Modi” has spent close to Rs 61 lakh in the past two months. In fact, the same page is offering gifts and free BJP merchandise to people who pledge to vote for the ruling party in the upcoming elections, which means extra expenditure on those goodies.
The BJP social media teams and leadership have been intelligent with their hashtag campaigns too. Just recently the #MainBhiChowkidaar campaign was trending on Twitter. Not just that, the on-ground rallies with people showing support to this slogan surely grabbed a lot many eyeballs. Other hashtags like #ModiOnceMore are being used widely by the party supporters.
While social media is a war zone that BJP is banking on very strongly, another interesting attribute of its campaigns is the Modi merchandise. From caps to sarees to masks to kids’ snack packets, Modi’s face can be found anywhere and everywhere. The TV, print, and radio campaigns have seen an equally big investment in promotions.
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Though such wide promotions might give an edge in terms of recognisability to the party, it might not be a stepping stone to success, says TRA Research CEO N Chandramouli on being asked to compare the expenditures made by the parties across media.
He shared, “When speaking to a local political party's communication advisor recently, we got discussing on the ad budgets of the current ruling party and the others. The ad budget differences between the BJP and Congress are estimated to be at least 3 to 4-fold. With such high budgets, BJP has started advertising with high intensity early on using all media at its means. On the other hand, Congress, which is estimated to have an ad-spend of just 25-30 per cent of the ruling cash-bags laden party, is surely waiting for the appropriate time to spend most productively.”
Elaborating more on the same, Chandramouli continued, “Not many notice this but the seven phases can be construed as a wily orchestration of distributing the lesser budget of the opposition over two extra phases to try and reduce their advertising fire-power. That said, such battles are not just won depending on the amount of ammunition that the side has, but on the ability of the party's message to mobilise people through positive messaging. Parochial politics, dividing, blaming, and finger-pointing and jingoism do not have a high impact on the highly aware electorate, who decides with the ballot keeping their personal concerns and needs in mind.”
The party having the highest ad-decibels and ad-spends faces one more critical challenge, that of their messages going into the blind-spot of the voter due to the repeated 'noise'.
India will go into polls over 7 phases starting 11 April to 19 May. The results will be announced on 23 May.
