I always liked Rajdeep Sardesai and so , was one of the population who fainted on hearing that he was quitting NDTV and will no longer be anchoring the Big Fight , which , without him , would become unimaginably dull.
Then the group of people ( including me) heaved a sigh of relief when we heard that Rajdeep would not quit tv media and instead launch a new channel. And so , while we waited , a strange fear grippled me , what if I don’t get to see it? You see , as a Chennai-ite , I hold the privilege of viewing channels through the CAS and since we could’nt watch CNN without the settop box , we naturally assumed that CNN IBN ( the new news channel) would be inaccesible too.
My fears were soon put to rest , as CNN IBN was launched ( yes , in Chennai too!) with huge expectations from Rajdeep Sardesai.
Yeah , initially they did ham , with the promises of ’’dedicated services’’. And they tried to establish themselves by conducting too many ’’sting’’ operations. Which may have succeeded partly.
The cat-and-mouse race is now between NDTV and CNN IBN. With Rajdeep and a few other journalists walked out , embarrassing Prannoy Roy , now Barkha Dutt and Vikram Chandra are being promoted.
And why is the race between NDTV and CNN IBN? Because , CNN IBN , in a short span of time has proved to have far better newsreaders that HeadLines Today or more engaging news than TimesNow.
I do not know who will finally win in this game , with each plagiarising the news from the other , but I secretly think it would be CNN IBN with Rajdeep in the lead.
Another plus point of CNNIBN , would be its awesome website , which has anything ranging from movies to politics.
CNN IBN has its share of novelties. Like , there is no newreaders for the weather report , it is completely self - explanatory , which I think is pretty good
Yes now , NDTV is recovering and Vikram Chandra ( the new host of Big Fight ) is fast improving too. Looks like both are on the equal side now. Which will improve? Only time will tell.