You know...

I'm not so sure this is a collective, 'What were you thinking?' moment but a 'What were you smoking?' moment. I mean seriously? The Big O? The Nobel Peace Prize? I mean, I can say this funnily, but by that twisted logic, the 'Holy Calf' has more rights on an award that they never gave the world's most famous pacifist. A man, whose visage featured on lots of pieces of paper I lost night. Maybe they just wanted to resurrect the prise after they awarded it to a guy who made a great powerpoint and some other bearded guy. But anyway, who are we to question the Nobel Prize Committee. I mean, I'm a guy who bleeds cash while playing cards. Oh well...

I've been working on some pretty interesting stuff and the last few days I've been forced to do a lot of number crunching - probably explains why my card game has gone down the tube, my brain is math-ed out. Playing with numbers always opens your mind to some really interesting facts and figures. You know, sometimes you miss out on that when you start paying too much attention to the gory details of media and political gossip, such as 'Whose Gay?' (the gossip, if it were to be made public might surprise some of you).

In other news, EchTee has something called a 'Leadership Summit'. And this year they've decided to bring over the Dumb and Dumber act - George W.Bush (who will speak about non-alcoholic beer) and Nawaz Sharif (who will speak on why Mush and Zardari are evil). And you thought bringing Mush was bad, this is going to be a security disaster. It is bad enough that the capital is swarming with Naxal apoplogists (you can read all about it in the Naxal's paper - 'Jihad and Maoism Today'), but this might bring out the mad-fringe-leftie firepower. Just thinking.

Hoping to play a bit of cards in the next couple of days as I thrown myself wontonly into the hands of money-fuelled excess. I need a drink. But first, I'm hungry.

News!

A desi-born Tam Bram, educated in the good state of Gujarat is one of the winners of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry (The Nobel Committee couldn't find his picture????). In the next few days, the media will claim him as our own, possibly the higher-caste hating politicians in TN will swallow pride and also claim him as their own. And in the process we'll forget about Pakistan and China (the only two countries Anchor Man is interested in declaring war on), the Maoists, the Champions Trophy and maybe even the awesome fraternal battle. Even though I doubt we will ever forget the last.
I guess we in the media feel a misplaced sense of patriotism and nationalism when it comes to anything 'Indian' or someone with even an iota of 'Indian-ness' (as long as they're not white, if you believe the desi media, all white people want to do, especially in Australia, is to beat Indians up*), it sometimes feels like "OMG, OMG, OMG" reporting. I'm not saying don't and the last thing I am is a hater, I just fail to make sense of of the brouhaha that follows. More so, because most of the people perpetuating the brouhaha seem to think exactly like me and wear their national pride on their sleeve, but exactly thump their breasts about it. But then again, sometimes I wonder if journalists really think while they're on the job...
In another piece of news, and this was just waiting to happen, the quaitting part at least. ST has quit Soiled Undie Profit and joined SR. I don't get the logic of the what and why, but this has happened. And another popular one doing the rounds nowadays is that Undie spoke to a couple of guys who sold an illusion to some Japanese company (the story is actually horribly old but has been recently discovered by some bloggers). That is old news, because as some of us know (yes, yes, I don't write everything nowadays I'm too lazy and this isn't really 'profitable' y'know) there was some issues regarding valuations. Now the guys who were being spoken to understood that the valuation demanded was an illusory one, since they're masters of the game, laughed at the demands and left. Not that the company isn't for sale (or so we har), but honestly, it would be cheaper to start a new TV channel nowadays instead of inheriting a crazy high-cost structure.
PS: In case you goils were wondering why you should not marry a Bong guy. Wonder no more, a bit boring in parts, but none the less.
PPS: This has to be best photograph I have ever seen. Well, OK I'm exaggerating, but anyhoo...
*Unless your name happens to be Brett Lee when all you want to do is act in Bollywood movies

Soiled Undies

Is there any good way of going about lay-offs? Nope. I know a lot of senior editors and while people constantly get removed for screw-ups and non-performance, lay-offs are not those. Here, people, usually hard-working ones lose a job because of reasons beyond their control. But even then, information can play a huge role.
Telling employees that you have more lay-offs scheduled through a third-party seems strange and to many not honest. I have been lucky that I have worked under editors who believe at (a level of, any which way) transparency. Most of them have at least. I have always had issues with people who protect non-confidential or work-related ‘information’ – whether that is company information on employment or a phone number. No I don’t always want to know what launches are around the corner or detailed financials, but if times are tough I would like to know what the hell is going on and openness there is something that I respect.
When that trust breaks down, that reflects on the quality of reportage and the confidence of even your best resources. And trust can break down – and then the stories and the leaks start. Some true and some patently absurd, but because of the situation you actually even listen to them. There are stories that people have been called back from assigned for a ‘talk’ or that the really high-cost senior resources haven’t cut back. And confidence levels drop to the point that numbers start to fall. As do profits and it all becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
It doesn’t have to be this way, you know. But the trouble is that the business books will probably look back and write about this as a case-study in ‘How not to’ and that, frankly, is the worst condemnation you can get.

PS: It appears that other than the ICL, Subhash Chandra’s other ‘venture’ (which was a JV) is also facing trouble and is on the block with the JV partners looking to cede management control. Hmmm…
EDIT: Typo in headline corrected - 'Soiled Undies' I guess is the best interpretation and what I really wanted to say in the first place.

Connecting the dots...

But first, kudos to the Supreme Court for standing up for 'true' secularism rather than the Muslim-pandering that typifies those like the CPI(M) who want to keep communal forces out. I mean even The Hindu editorial team disapproves. I don't condone Varun Gandhi's statements, but the fact remains that his statements have found an eerie resonance outside the 'liberal' classes. Why?
I think the Muslim minority in India is being badly let down by its leaders, voting en masse as a religious block rather than for those who want to help them progress. And the attacks, even those not inside our borders are beginning to scare people shitless. Yesterday's attack happened 12 kilometeres from our international border (and I'm scared that it isn't a question of 'if' another attack happens in India but 'when', and honestly dying for someone elses twisted political cause is not how I want to go), and when 'Too-scared to run for Election' Singh meets 'God' (a.k.a #44 Barack H.Obama) they won't be discussing the economy and outsourcing and why the Indian government should pitch in to save General Motors India (fantastic PR plant one must admit to PTI, no questions at all about how they're sinking), which is flailing about pretty much as badly as the parent company. Nope. They'll be discussing Af-Pak and the fact that India is sitting down right next to a powderkeg.
Now back to the 'dots' thing I mentioned. Remember as a kid sometimes you never followed the numbers in sequence when connecting the dots just to see what happened? Well I did. Yes, I was a twisted kid. Now, yesterday's post spoke of the editorial and marketing tie-up between Mint and CNBC-TV18. Now, and this I must clarify is complete speculation and I could be totally off the ball here, but what if this signifies the first baby steps towards Raghav Behl's acquisition of Mint?
Think about it, RB is deperate to build a print empire, his acqusition of Infomedia prove that. Many of those publications are floundering and delays in the launch of Forbes India make ET Now's delays seem ordinary. Now, RB failed with the FT India launch and Mint could well lose the WSJ tie-up because WSJ wants to launch a facsimilie in India. Now, what if, TV18 takes over Mint, obviously there will be jostling over the price and all that, but think about it for a second? See, HT Media's results will show that Mint is a bottomless money pit and despite getting rid of several high-profile, high-cost and lazy people, Mint still bleeds far too much money. Worse still, while Mint does fantastic features, as a 'News'paper it is falling further and further behind. RB buys Mint, HT Media manages to make some money or at least save face, RB can position CNBC's agenda and the FT content into Mint which has a ready-made brand. Win-win for everybody.
Just my two paise here, and I could be skipping far too many dots, but I have been thinking about this possibility. Anyway, I have a lot of work over the coming few days, so there might be fewer posts than usual. Have a great week, and did anyone catch the Australian Grand Prix, what a race!

Hello, I'm back...

Miss Me?
Apparently, quite a few people did. I didn't shut down the blog, but I did take some time off-line, no Internet and the phone number was a new AT&T number and since in the US they charge you for the 'privilege' of getting a text message, I got the news about Mint at a considerable cost to myself. The US is an insane telecom market, and a pretty crazy media market too. But nothing can come close to the Middle East, I was stuck with a bunch of Arabs and Lebanese (including a diva who will make some of our telly Diva's tantrums look ordinary) who could only talk about a shoe. Or the lack of one.
Anyway, back to the media. One person is heading back to the US and two others have run away to Rio. I have previously on this blog admitted that I like Mint, and I maintain that Mint is a great way to catch two-three day old WSJ features for cheap and Mint itself does some pretty good features, but the paper has a startling lack of news nowadays. Which is strange considering the Wall Street Journal carries one hell of a lot of 'news', even though in the US the 'economy' is the big news. Along with a shoe, that is. In my two weeks in the States, I got inundated with shoe references. But that is besides the point really.
Why did Raju N run away? Well, he does get a nice India reference on the resume, but in a way the end of the SAJA-era in Mint will not be mourned by many. Raju, by all indications has been wanting to leave for a while. And that should also help Mint bring down its costs. Suku is a great guy, even though he has a scary fetish with Alan Moore, though that is a hell of a lot better than the fetishes some editors have. But, seeing the 'new' Mint of late, and while it still looks good, it is being hollow on straight news by a suddenly improved Business Standard.
And as one person I spoke to pointed out, the success or failure of an editor should not be judged whether they launched a 'good' product or a 'well-designed' product, but whether the product is profitable or at least has a clear path to profitability. Mint, and to be fair, it is not alone, does not have one. Some predicted that Mint would have a purge, and such a thing might be good for the newspaper. Periodic purges help media organisation just as much as they help political parties (so in that case, why hasn't there been one in ET, the other horribly bloated and rapidly degrading media outlet there? My logic does not always hold true). A leaner, meaner Mint might be good for everyone involved, including HT Media's bottom line. Mint still does some good features, but with the agreement with WSJ going to run out sooner or later, the paper needs to stand on its own two feet, and right now it is barely able to crawl.
And page counts are taking a terrible hit aren't they? The era of 28 pages seems to have come and gone. And as for the couple in Rio, evidently Brazil does not have a extradition treaty with Singapore, but I'm not quite sure of that. Anyway, it also appears that the number of suitors for the network in question now involves every media house there is, but with holes being found during the audit trail, things aren't good. Let me get back up to speed and I'll ply you with more info.

The Uncle has landed

OK, since Uncle Rupert is in India after many years the rumour mills have gone into overdrive. Here is just a sampling of what we have heard, and what I believe will be the likelihood of the rumour coming through. Again, these are just rumours and my opinions, so let's not think I'm puppetting someone else here, OK?

- Uncle M will launch an Indian edition of the Asian WSJ
This is a rather strong rumour, remember Uncle M bought the WSJ after the WSJ-HT Media deal for Mint. But, I really do like Mint and I think that it is a nice product (even if it is a bit thin on news per se), so I wouldn't want this to happen, but you know Uncle M... he wants control. Therefore, there is also a possibility according to one rumour that HT Media will spin off Mint into a JV with Uncle M. Hmmm....

- Uncle M wants to launch a facsimilie edition of the London Times (aka 'The Times' - you know the real deal)
Erm, very likely but while JC and AA Gill are regular columnists in the paper, which I like, would you buy it? I mean facsimilie editions telling you how white yobs are beating and stabbing people across the UK?

- Uncle M wants to bring 'The Sun' brand to India
If the Daily Mail can come in why can't The Sun. I say don't bring it without the Page 3 girls. No really, Murdoch invented Page 3 and his Page 3 is a lot frikkin nicer than the paid-for spots in Indian papers. Do note that, the link while work safe initially, does get a bit steamy if you click through.

- Murdoch will buy the Indian Express.
Unlikely, because why would someone want to buy the Express. They don't even own much of their land anymore.

- And the big one, will Uncle M dump Aveek Sarkar?
The fact that the ABP Group is in trouble is as open a secret as Business Standard's problems. BusinessWorld had around 50 edit pages in its last issue, The Telegraph is a small regional daily and ToI is gradually eating into its readership, and BCCL is already eating up the adverts, thanks to their sales staff. Small localised Bengla papers are killing the motherbrand as well. Star News wants to grow, Uday Shankar has done a great job, they want to get into more news ventures - English and Business news is what we have heard.
This rumour is strengthened by the fact that Aveek Sarkar happens to be far from India while Uncle M and his hot wife visit the country. But, if not ABP than whom? The man whose airline is on the verge of collapsing while Carlsberg steals away the market and his F1 Team strengthen their hold at the bottom of the grid? Nope. Even VJM won't try to enter into a relationship with the 'Real' Uncle. So whom... Read on...

- Here is the super-duper wild one - Uncle M will tie-up with BCCL...
You know, it really is too wild...
BUT....
I have not been smoking and you know, ten years ago if you told me that I could fit eight gigs of memory into something the size of my fingernail in a decade I would have thought that you were on some really strong LSD. This is highly unlikely, given how BCCL has fought FDI tooth and nail. But who else gives you the reach? The presence? The marketing muscle? The management bandwidth? The journalists? Nobody else. And as we have said, Uncle M is the most powerful man in the world, so raising money should not be a problem, because BCCL will cost a bomb, but I would never say never.

Yes...

The eleventh season of Top Gear is only ten days away! I'm sorry to write a post about this, but this is by far and away one of the best 'talk' shows on televsion - from planning to execution. I'm pretty sure you don't really need to heart cars to like this show. Must pay my broadband bills, I'll need the bandwidth to download this show.
Back to media talk, rumours are swirling that Bennett will bring the 'Mirror' brand to Delhi after fairly successful launches in Bangalore, Kolkata and Pune. Supposedly, Sameer Kapoor, CEO of Metroploitan Media, the bastard child between Times and HT which brings out Metro Now quit yesterday. However, Metro Now is currently printed at the HT Press (which is an independent company and will also be printing the Sakaal Times at its scheduled August launch in Delhi) and Times, despite improving its presses in Delhi does not have the capacity right now to bring out a small format 48-pager which if they follow strategy will go out with ToI as the mothership itself is increasing circulation in Delhi.
But the operative word is 'right now', we mightwell see a 'Delhi Mirror' sometime in 2009. Or maybe not. Metro Now has had its hits and misses, but more misses than hits and it still does not have a website. You have to remember that Metro Now was brought out to fend off competition from new launches such as Mail Today and Mid-Day Delhi. People who know a bit of media history will do well to remember 'The Independent' in Mumbai. That was a long, long time ago. You tend to remember all sorts of crap when you grow up around journalists!
Note to HT Media: Fire your creative agency for coming up with that awful ad for Shine.com. Ugh!

Trouble in Modi-Land!

There is this rather ridiculous charge of 'sedition' against the Times in Ahmedabad. Now, the Times isn't prone to doing hachet jobs, a la HT, but this was a good story.
Now, the Times has a stranglehold on the Ahmedabad market, a almost 90 per cent share and the Times' brass is very close to Narendra Modi. Mathur probably knows he is cornered, and is looking for a way out but like all cops looking for a way out of a difficult situation of late (UP Police) but the man will not go down with a fight, he is purportedly digging out old cases and is threatening Times journalists in true mafia style, getting more coverage to the case which might take on a political angler, though it is unlikely the story did not have some sort of 'official' blessing earlier. Now Narendra Modi does not want to alienate the national media all over again, the 2007 Elections did allow him to repair his image with a lot of the middle-classes. A loose cannon of a policeman is the last thing he needs.
Though if the Congress gets involved, he might just say, 'Screw It!', though given that Arun Jaitley might want to matter to die down sooner might mean some action will take place. The charge of sedition will never hold in court and arresting journalists, including some close to him (and also tied into the pro-Modi Gujarati media) is anathema. The Times is not Tehelka blowing up some lame 'sting' operation.
What do you think will happen? Will the right-wingers in the Times Group get through to BJP top-brass and prevent a meltdown? Will Modi realise that if he is to ever become PM, he should not make enemies with the English language media all over again, after all Gujarat doesn't have that many seats in the Lok Sabha and delimitation just increases the power of cities (where people read the Times). I personally think this will blow over by the middle of this month, but given that this is the Times, things could stretch.
Moving on, we stick with Jain-run company. Yes, the self-congratulatory stories aside, why did the Times Group foray into Radio in the UK? I have a funny feeling that the 'Radio Mirchi' brand will be stretched and from being a purveyor of sad Brit-Pop, it might actually start going after rich desi's in the UK with sad Indi-Pop. Long live Globalisation. To clarify, HT Media's tie-up with Virgin for Fever FM is not affected by this deal since 'Beardy Branson' (to quote Jeremy Clarkson) runs that through Virgin Radio International.
Also, to be fair, this is not the worst government since 1977, because I forgot the VP Singh, Chandrashekher, IK Gujral and Deve Gowda governments. But those are like footnotes in Indian history, this government will likely be the worst full-term (or close to full-term) government we have ever had. I am not saying that because of my affilliations for the BJP, I am saying that thanks to the complete and total economic mismanagement of the country. It isn't all the UPA's fault, depending on such great allies like Prakash Karat, what could you expect.
Oh yeah, and the Financial Chronicle website is frikkin scary.

Trouble at HT Media?

You don't have to make up stories about HT anymore. Not that I ever did.
The Resident Editor of the Delhi paper is off to Dubai and this fact has been written about by a Gulf newspaper. (EDIT: Link corrected) The RE of the Bombay edition runs off for a three-month holiday with his wife, who heads the weekend supplement of the group's financial paper by threatening to quit. Increment's are so bad at the main paper that tens of more people are leaving to join anywhere they can find (now, apparently Sakaal Times is the latest destination - Sharad Pawar's not so bright political fortunes aside), and it seems people on the edit page of the paper have no idea of the term 'copyright'.
Of course, these poor increments are offset by the fact that Papermint is handing out huge salaries, though after the recent shuffle at the top, is supposedly looking for a new new boss - though that appears peculiar. This coupled together with the fact that James, a son of the Murdoch is coming to India to discuss a potential tie-up with another paper group for launching a general paper is even stranger. And there is that little thing about Papermint, have you seen their 'video reports' on their website, these are the rudimentary beginnings of their proposed business TV channel.
And as I asked in my previous post, what on earth has Vinod Mehta been smoking lately? And to answer one commenter. Yes, tech is a lot cheaper than before, and spending collosal amounts on hardware to service small numbers of customers is not a big deal anymore, leasing tech is quite common and the incremental cost of serving new customers is pretty close to zero, but you still need to spend on a decent content management system as well as some amount of fairly expensive hardware. There is a cost, and while you can set up a website for next to nothing, setting up a decent website with content coming in fairly regularly, and one one that can handle a good amount of traffic and stream videos and what have you will still cost. Of course, the cost of tech is probably lower than the cost of an overpaid and idiotic manager, but that is another story.

A clarification.

I want to point out that this is not an 'HT-attack' blog. I learnt my trade for two years at 18-20 KG Marg and maybe because I owe the paper a lot of gratitude that I feel so pissed off at its decline, because there is a part of me which wants it to do well. My history with The Hindustan Times goes a lot deeper than just two years in a dark corner, those of you who know who I am will know what I am hinting at, but it suffices to say that for many years as a senior school student I used to walk down to the building and spend hours in the library there, it was only correct that I would want to work there.
That is not to say that there has been a palpable improvement in the Times of India over the past few years, HT's decline in Delhi, the western part of the city aside is extremely irritating to me. At every level the paper seems to screwing up. And this decline has happened thanks to ham-handed management from the top-down (starting with but not limited to the 'no-poaching agreeement with BCCL), stupid editorial decisions, not least of all having almost no stability at the top and not knowing what it wants to be, and at a level there is this sense of refusal by the paper to cut with the past.
Like an old lover who just holds on, unable to give up, some overhyped people have reained for years while a whole crop of young and talented young guys moved off to greener pastures, and many of them could have been retained if only a more sincere attempt was made. Heck, the paper dithered over signing my extension papers for so long and when they did gave me a decent hike, though my current employers (where I have stayed for the past five years now) had already made me a better offer and I had signed on by then. I would have continued at HT if only they had been a few months faster.
I work with several former-HT hands today, I am still close to several of my former colleagues at HT, all of them very good people, well most of them anyway, and all of them dfespair at the decline of the paper. Of course, it can be argued that the devline started around eight years ago, and the denial mode the paper went into when the first IRS report came out showing that ToI had overtaken it (I was there, I worked on the denial story) was telling.
That was however, the first of several reports - today, by all indications, HT is trounced by ToI in the NCR, even though in its bastion of West and Old Delhi the paper still leads comprehensively. The problem is in the 'newer' Delhi, the younger, hip Delhi/Gurgaon/Noida where HT loses out. Not because the product is bad, but because it lost crucial readers long ago (and because of godawful distribution). In fact, say what I will about editorial, HT's weakest link is management which has been awful for over twenty years. While BCCL has made a few mistakes (and Private Treaties is not one of them, despite the portfolio really not looking that pretty anymore) such as losing a young Times Music executive called Haresh Chawla a decade or so ago, it has managed to ramp up and take on all comers. Sure HT's gone public, but if BCCL goes public (and it might, maybe post-election) the valuation it will get will be so immense, that it probably afford to buy HT for around five-seven per cent of their stock (in an all-stock deal).
I do not believe that the paper is beyond redemption, but the steady decline of the paper in Delhi is reminiscent of the Indian Express' decline in Mumbai in the eighties. HT is more than just a Times wannabe, it is a great institution and the decline of the paper is a man-made decline. A decline that can be halted not by bringing foreign imports one after the other, but by level-headed management and some good young people at the helm. I wonder if anyone at HT management will ever read this post.
The question is, 'Will Madam B sell?' And this question has been getting louder and louder over the years. I have no clue, because I do not have an insight into the matter, but I would not. I so not believe HT is beyond redemption.

I'm back...

Sorry, I was away on a trip out of the heat, getting a final series of stamps on my passport before it has to be renewed. This blog has not been 'shut down' by editors orders though ed claims blog is taking too much of my time, which may be correct. Anyway, I'm back now and here are some updates.
According to the grapevine, Jojo IS actually leaving - though no formal papers have been signed he is not only leaving but dragging around 15 senior editors from the Times and ET with him along with a posse of very good reporters. Plus, why did HT's last Executive Editor actually leave, was it because one video clip got released into the wild along with an email chat transcript? And what has been happening at Papermint in the RN-RS equation, who is exactly what now?
And the big news, now that Sanjaya Baru has finally decided to move on, his position will be taken over by The Hindu's current Political Editor Harish Khare and his position might be willed by Sid Vardharajan. Plus, and this is news about one of this blog's favourite personalities, The V is back in play and will be rewarded for years of unswerving loyalty to Italy (which is a frikkin' expensive but gorgeous country) by being made Chairman of Prasar Bharti.
Go figure!

Tired!

Did a day return trip today on the Shatabdi and dragged a laptop along with several movies I bought at the MBK Mall in Bangkok. Most of them were crap, but the last one I saw blew me away. It is called London to Brighton, and if you guys can check it out in the theatre or on DVD, make sure you watch it. Dark, brutal and horribly violent such a movie could only have been made in modern-day Britain. Damn, I loved this movie. Sorry to do movie plugs every once in a while, but this one deserves it.

Tomorrow I'll try and put a post together on the events at UTV where Ronnie Screwalla allegedly 'fled' his offices in Bombay when the Police came (Ironically, not to arrest him) and is currently in Singapore. All this because UTV and their subsidiary companies owe a lot of people a lot of money. Plus, UTV Business, the channel that is going to be launched by Govind Ethiraj is facing delays thanks to 'issues' in acquiring an uplink VSAT license we hear. Anyway, all that and more later.

Hi! I ran the Oregonian

Yes, Oregon, the home of the Portland Trailblazers and Nike. Wedged between the powerhouse states of California to the south and Washington to the north. But, why do you ask is this sometimes political, sometimes nonsensical, bitchy and stupid blog talking about American geography? Well, supposedly, there is a chap called Peter K Bhatia, another SAJA soul who is coming to India to take over the boss of EchTee. You heard it here first. Peter, and this blog supposedly does not like Indian folks called Peter, refer to the NewsX fiasco is the current Executive Editor of The Oregonian. I do not think the Indian newspaper industry is as hard up as the aviation sector for 'Commanders' that we need to fly in recruits from abroad. I also believe that a senior political journo from EchTee was fired because he took money from INX as well. The story gets murkier and murkier.
I believe PaperMint did a fairly good job until it shot itself in the foot with a childish centre-spread (unsurprisingly, the web-edition did not have that spread, the PDF is a 30 meg download by the way) Mint had far and away the most balanced media coverage but something as out of kilter as their budget spread was insane. Come on, one of their 'green dots' was for increased HRD spending! C'mon, a fifth-grader could have told you that, which government wants to shoot itself in the foot by keeping education spending steady?
Anyway, I will be posting the first of a series of 'By Invitation' posts on the blog shortly, where I will ask prominent editors or other folks in the know to write about various aspects of the media, from bad reportage to the future of the media in the internet age. The first series is being written by a close friend who is an environmentalist and he talks about the ridiculous and 'incorrect' coverage given to environmental issues by the media.
And in some completely unrelated news, Rahul Joshi, Executive Editor of The Economic Times has been asked to take over additional responsibility as Editorial Director of ETtv. Maybe, the Times Group wants some synergies between trhe business channel and the business paper since I believe it has gone badly wrong for synergies between Times Now and ToI. But that is another story for another post.

Bloodbath!

This is from sources, this may not be correct, or fully correct, but when did that ever stop me. his is likely going to be a post that pisses off a lot of people because of its content. There is supposedly going to be a bloodbath in EchTee over the next few days, supposedly as many as 30 people are being shown the door and new people are being brought in to head the Political and Business bureaus. The business head will wear the fanciful title of "Executive Editor (Business)" which is a very fancy way of saying "Business Editor" and from my previous interactions with this man he is a pompous fart. Which means he will fit right into the place. There is also supposedly going to be some RE action and best of all, the new big boss. Yes, and this time round they're getting yet another dark chocolate with white filling, but this one has no experience in India whatsoever. Brilliant! If this is true, I presume Jojo will be buying the drinks for everyone. Or maybe it will be Mr. Jain doing the buying. Anyway, the conspiracy theory7, as mooted by a former EchTee hand has something to do with the head-hunting agency.
In other movement news, the editor of a business magazine who formerly operated as a China stringer, managed to piss off the Finance Minister so much, not like Raghav Behl by banging on (correctly) about the loan waiver but by his general lack of knowledge is going to be replaced because Chiddu's grumbling went back to Calcutta. Furthermore, Forbe's is launching in India in a collaborative project with TV18 and their Ed is supposedly the current Mumbai chief of ET. We know some reasons why this guy is moving on, but we won't speculate about them here lest I be accused of something.
Coming back to The Economic Times, remember how in my last post I mentioned Papermint's rather self-congratulatory piece saying how they got a lot of pieces right and ET got them wrong, a friend of mine at ET called up to say, "Mint is slow and inefficient, their exclusive on Reliance Retail we had reported about happening in November." Cursory web-check proves that to be true, fair enough, ET reported about the possibility of something happening and Papermint reported about the happening, it would lend credence to some people at ET thinking that Mint has no reportage skills.
To take issue with Mint, no media organisation can do an audit like this, had Mint 'outsourced' the audit, maybe to Cirrus or some organisation like that, it might have made sense. I don't believe that ET just did 20-something stories in 50 days about the budget, I used to read five-six daily and many of them had, often in the body-copy (bad desk jobs, but anyway) the word 'considering'. This sort of audit is ripe material for a blog, and Mint's job was a bit juvenile. But what did you expect with Americans! However, anyone from Papermint is welcome to email me explaining their decision.
And coming back to the freaking Bus Corridor and this loony commenter, I think ToI and Megha Suri are doing a fantastic job. Not only because I travel down that stretch, but because it is a bad idea, and the next supporter who says, "Bogota", well the reason the bus corridor works there is because I'm pretty sure Cocaine-central has wide roads, bus drivers on Coke and have you seen the size of Bogota? It is smaller than Defence Colony. I have used public transport, I still use public transport all I am saying that stupidly implemented projects should be flayed. I mean the cunt who thought of reducing the turn-off's at Chirag Delhi to a lane and a half should be shot! And incidentally, the Chief Secretary of Delhi LIED to the Times defending the project.
And lastly, this fantastic article about Vijay Mallya done by Bloomberg is a major reason why India's Beardy is not talking to anyone. That and the fact most F1 fans, well, all F1 fans in India are still supporting Lewis and Kimi.

Happy belated birthdays!

To Papermint (Mint, for the rest of you) and MetroNow (in Delhi), both papers have surprised some by their very survival and I must admit, it has been a steep learning curve. can't really do a year in review, since I cannot claim to have read the papers on a very regular basis, but lets start. MetroNow's biggest story of the year was the Gitanjali Nagpal aka 'Babe on the streets case', this was the year's highlight which the rest of the media picked up. But nothing else that metroNow really did was spectacular. Yes, it reprints some stuff that comes out in Mumbai Mirror, but somehow it seems to lack the irreverance of the Mumbaikar. MM is bindass, like the city, MetroNow is, well... Sadly, the paper suffers because of its rather weird parentage (where Bennett and HT Media both have 50 per cent stakes in an attempt to make sure the India Today-dail Mail paper didn't do too well) - so weird in fact that Metro Now does not have a website which works (two internet organisations with equally clueless plans). Not in the sense of paid or free, there is nothing beyond a billboard.
And you can't really have that criticism about Papermint, their website is fantastic and now registration free. Pity, EchTee's website is still irritating, given that they are in the same group and all. But, what about the paper itself? Like the size, like some of the stories and Papermint has the penchant for nice soft stories, even though the one they launched - shit on the railway tracks or something was pathetic then and it still is - it is as if these guys want to out-Express the Express. But, somehow Papermint is, as a rather famous dot-com entreprenuer who is a fan of the paper told me, 'A great way to read WSJ content for the low price of two bucks.' But when it comes to great news content, while Papermint is a not bad, it still is the 'Mint with a hole' as they might say.
However, there is also 'Lounge', Mint's saturday section, which is very interesting to read at times, not always, but definately at times it is fantastic to read. Pity that they have a sanctimonious old man who keeps on trying to tell us that the Beatles and Led Zepplin rocked. Yes, they did, but get off the pot man! Oh wait, he never did pot - as was admitted in a sanctimonious food article written sometime ago! But, it isn't just this one column in Lounge, while I like most of the columnists in Mint, some of them are truly batty and out of the planet. Anyway, these are just my thoughts on these papers, if you work here, don't take anything to heart and get offended and throw eggs at me while shouting racial obscenities, I mean what can you say, "Bong's are all pricks." Thanks but I already know that.
Back, to everybody's favourite topic on this blog, NewsX. Well, Arup Ghosh has joined them as Newsroom Head, and there have been rumours linking Karan Thapar, Vasu, Rahul Srivastava, Bhupen Chaubey and G-Ban. Strange! In other news, it appears that people have already started to dig through the channels sources of funds and in the coming days, certain nwspapers may print details of this. Keep in mind, that Peter is a British citizen, so ownership issues could be very muddled here. Comment moderation stayed enabled for the time being, though most comments do get cleared and moderation just keeps everything relatively clean.

Yikes!

According to some sources it appears that The V, for lack of anything to do is going back to EchTee, and not only am I surprisied at the decision, I'm surprised EchTee is allowing this. In the last six-eight months the paper had managed to pick up some of the pieces after the Times consistently trashed it in Delhi both on readership and circulation. From all indications, the coteries in the newsroom had been broken (weakened in any case) and the place began to finally resemble a somewhat professional place.
What will happen now is unclear, but I am pretty sure that the people over at The Times of India are rather happy. EchTee had finally stopped using the line that, "Our editorial content is better", because over the past two years, it was evident that it wasn't. There is still a lot of deadwood in EchTee that needs seriously cleaning up. In the early 200's, the paper lost a lot of capable young twenty-somethings (including myself) to both television and rival papers, and there was no concerted effort to hold onto these people. When efforts were made, they were so half-hearted, that really no-one cared. Most of these young things have gone on to do fairly well wherever they joined, the Times of India in many cases.
Don't get me wrong, I still am very grateful to that newspaper and I still think that the The V is a great writer. But I'm not sure getting him back in an controlling position editorially is a terribly good idea. This also leaves the question of what will happen to those who went off with The V to join him at NewsX, will they all be accomodated back in HT? Some of these people burned all the bridges they have at the paper, and getting them back might lead to an open revolt among some of the people who have joined the paper since they left. So EchTee, which has been in a state of flux editorially for the last three years will stay that way. I have a bad feeling that a concerted effort by another paper could see them topple EchTee from the #2 position too, if they decide to strike now.
Also, on the NewsX front, it seems that Arup Ghosh, who happens to still be around, is joining them as Newsroom chief. Weirder things have happened.

New telly channels!

No, we aren't talking about the soon to be launched News X, with its brand-new brand ambassador Dada!
or about UTV Business, which I thought would have started by now...
But about the now strongly rumoured 'MintTV' from HT. Supposedly technical people are leaving other networks in droves to this new not-yet-formally named channel. This isn't the first time that HT has forayed into TV, they had a disasterous foray into home-ent almost a decade ago called 'HomeTV'. With their online division also sprucing up their act, and HT Media now a listed company, I guess investors have to constantly see something exciting.
Not that the Times Group's forays into TV have been 'very' successful, Zoom is an unmitigated disaster and Times Now.. well ho-hum. I guess unless you can get the top leadership right, there will be problems.

The non-sting!

In my last post I asked whether the Broadcast Bill, per se is such a bad thing? This was in the light of the haphazardly conducted sting operation by 'Live India' which now turns out to be fake. Of course, a friend at NDTV had told me on the day of the sting that Sudhir Chaudhary, the Editor-in-Chief of the channel did not have the what-would-you-call-it deep-rooted belief in ethics that say most normal journalists have (hah!). In fact, in turns out that both the Editor and the Reporter had tried to run this story at the former employers - India TV, where even that most sensational of channels, and no stranger to the 'honey trap' system decided against it.
Anyway, no point delving into the news, but what the fallout of this news item will be. I'm sure in the columns that will proliferate Edit and Op-Ed pages from tomorrow, there will be calls for the arrest of the editor, the reporter and the 'aspiring journalist' (and this leads to quite disturbing questions in its own right!) girl who posed as the prostitute. Fair enough, I agree with that - if AKB can be sentenced to one month's RI for 'criminal defamation' of a much less injurious nature (you did know this, didn't you?) these three should be locked up for a year at least and blacklisted from the profession. Not that some of these start-up channels really care who the hell they hire and this only made the news because it happened in Delhi and the newspapers decided to get to the bottom of the story. From the reports I've heard, in small-town TV channels such irresponsible reportage is like par for the course.
Which brings me back to the simple question - How can you control rogue journalists? I mean, lets be honest there will be rogues because its all about ratings and thus advertising and thus money? You need rules, and this incident will be used by PRDM to push through the Broadcast Bill, or at least used as an excuse. Now, the argument that NDTV and CNN-IBN will use is that it would be unfair to bring them under the purview of this act and governments that don't like these channels such as Mr Modi's will use this act to crack down upon them. Which is a very valid fear. This bill will also put in a a lot of needless bureaucracy. But you do need some sort of standards council where in case of conflict such things can be vetted - what is in the public good, what legal recourse people should take, heck, what standards should be followed! I don't believe Tehelka's and India TV's 'Honey trap' system is fair and is open to huge amounts of abuse - like Tehelka's relentless pursuit of politicians of a certain party.
But, things can't be this wild. To use an analogy - could the aviation boom in India happened without Air Traffic Control. You would not want pilots to compete with each other to land on the runway first and SpiceJet and Indigo chaps running their airlines like a Blueline Bus service (Delhi-wallah's will understand) ramming pedestrians left, right and centre. But, the Broadcast Bill is a bit draconian and the TV channels are saying that we don't want any rules at all. That is clearly an untenable situation, a compromise needs to be found. What it will be I have no clue, but honestly, the sooner it is found the better.
On another note, there is a strong rumour doing the rounds that Rajiv Verma, CEO, HT Media has quit/bee fired. If true, you really have to wonder what the hell is going on in that group! First the Editor and now the CEO. Phoren-Returns not working too well, I wonder if the Jain's, their managers and editors are sniggering!