Rajan Mahan , Star News , this is Divya Malik Lahiri , Star News , Ajai Shukla and Vishnu Som reporting from Afghanistan Star news !!! , all household names now, they were just ordinary people like you and me , now they are our personal news bearers. New Delhi Television or NDTV has come a long way !!!. Spearheaded by the suave Prannoy Roy , they have revolutionized Television News reporting in India.
I remember the Doordarshan days , the drab news which we used to get , the News readers were good though !!! , but it was the lack of quality and the monotony of the news reporting that weighed them down, & I guess they still havent improved either. I remember when Prannoy actually started his brand of news in Doordarshan itself , one of my uncles had remarked ’’ The way sponsorships are going these days , I guess News is the only thing left and that would be sponsored too.. very soon ’’ , wasn’t he right !!! But then commercials however irritating they may be are the ones can allow producers the financial power to try out new ideas.
Star News now is a complete channel on its own, earlier it was a part of the Star plus channel after it split with Doordarshan. NDTV then had the 9 pm slot and the 7 to 9 am slot in the morning with Good Morning India in Star plus and Star World , slowly as the viewer ship increased the Star News Channel was born !!!
What makes it Tick ?
The presentation , the style , the multilingual approach .. to name a few. There are many news channels now, which air news with their brand of Hinglish !!! ( a mix of Hindi and English ) , I personally find that stupid, because you are getting nowhere, neither are you capturing the hard core English news viewer nor are you reaching to the masses.. Having a news bulletin in Hindi and also in English makes sure you appeal to both the sections.
Their fresh approach in designing new news based programmes, like ’’ The Big Fight ’’ by the inimitable and the brilliant Rajdeep Sardesai, and ’’Reality Bites’’ and ’’We the People’’ by the modern day Jhansi ki Rani Barkha Dutt. These programs are technically very sound and are very well anchored. Sometimes Rajdeep does a better show in controlling the Politicians than the Speaker of the Lok Sabha !!!.
The fearless team of Journalists who rush to the news spot immediately ’’As it happens when it happens ’’ make sure we get our cup of news first and the intelligent discussions by (generally) Vikram Chandra , Prannoy Roy & Arnab Gosami on the ongoing topic keeps us glued to our seats.
The Business news analysis, Sports analysis , their Limelight segment all make sure that the viewer gets all the information he or she needs.
My personally favorite is the bloopers which they air on New year , which shows all the top news readers making small mistakes and sometimes even pulling each others legs !!!
Flipsides
I am an early riser and I always like to get my cup of news first up, but till 7 am all we get is reruns, of the earlier day’s news, this means we don’t have the 24 hr ’’news’’ channel. The fresh news comes pouring only at 7 am. Now that’s a tad sad, news is one thing that people would like to see at all times, probably the 7 am can be preponed to 6 am or something…
Well so wrapping it up , I must fill your ears with a news article which says NDTV is splitting up with STAR network and in all probability starting their own , Well I will surely miss them during the period between the split off and the launch of the new channel as I cant bring myself to see any other Indian news channel than Star News !!!