Republic TV
Republic TV is an free to air Indian news channel launched in May 2017. It was co-founded by Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Arnab Goswami. Chandrasekhar was an independent legislator from the National Democratic Alliance who later joined the Bharatiya Janata Party and Goswami was the former editor-in-chief of Times Now. The venture was funded primarily by Chandrashekhar through his company Asianet News. Goswami became the majority owner after Chandrasekhar relinquished his stake in May 2019.
Critical reception has been negative. The channel has been accused of practicing biased reporting in favor of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and of publishing fake news. It has also been convicted of breaching Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and News Broadcasting Standards Authority rules. This, in turn, has led to censure; it has also triggered a high-profile civil defamation case filed by Indian National Congress legislator Shashi Tharoor.
History
Background
resigned as editor-in-chief of Times Now on 1 November 2016, citing editorial differences, lack of freedom and newsroom politics. He hosted the last edition of his show, The Newshour Debate, a fortnight later. Incidentally, the show had been subject to an investigation by Ofcom, the UK broadcasting regulatory authority, in August and September; the investigation had held Times Now guilty of violating the impartiality clause of its broadcast code.On 16 December, Goswami announced his next venture, a news channel called Republic; the name was later changed to Republic TV in the face of complaints. Republic TV was claimed to be India's first independent media outlet which would 'democratize' news and compete with global media giants whilst being unabashedly biased for India.
Funding
Republic TV was funded in part by Asianet, which was primarily funded by Rajeev Chandrasekhar, a then-independent member of Rajya Sabha who had intricate links with Bharatiya Janata Party and was vice-chairman of the National Democratic Alliance in Kerala. Among other major investors were Goswami, his wife, educationists Ramdas Pai and Ramakanta Panda—all of whom invested through SARG Media Holding Private Ltd.Chandrasekhar resigned from the board, after he officially joined the BJP in April 2018; Goswami purchased back Asianet's shares in May 2019.
Recruitments
S. Sundaram, who had served as the CFO for Times Now between 2005 and 2012, was named the Group CFO. Chief Business Officer of Reliance Broadcast Network Vikas Khanchandani was made the CEO and co-founder of The News Minute, Chitra Subramaniam was roped in as the editorial adviser.Others who joined included senior anchor of Thanthi TV S. A. Hariharan, retired army officer and television personality Gaurav Arya, former chief correspondent from Jammu and Kashmir for Times Now Aditya Raj Kaul, writer and founder-editor of Gentleman and Business Barons, Minhaz Merchant and actor Anupam Kher.
The Wire and Newslaundry had earlier chanced upon an internal memo floated by Chandrasekhar's group that asked for selective recruitment of right-of-center pro-military voices, who were conducive to his ideology.
Launch
The channel was launched on 6 May 2017 as a free-to-air channel through most DTH services and cable television operators, alongside over mobile platforms such as JioTV and Hotstar. Reporting on its launch, Business Standard wrote, "The company has already hired 300 people, of whom 215 are on board. A state-of-the-art-studio is being built in Mumbai's Lower Parel area."Reception
Public
The Financial Express noted Republic TV to be the most-watched English news channel in India for 100 weeks in a row since its founding. The top news channel spot was taken over by DD India, a public service broadcaster, in February 2019, according to the Indian newspaper Mint. In the first quarter of 2019, Republic TV and DD India alternated for the most-watched English news channel position in the weekly ratings as measured by Broadcast Audience Research Council India group.Goswami has been noted to be a critical factor behind the favorable public reception.
Critical commentary
The channel has been noted for its opinionated reporting in support of the BJP and Hindutva across a wide spectrum of situations, including by presenting political opponents in a negative light and avoiding criticism of figures from ruling parties. It has also been alleged that the channel popularized the neologisms of "Urban Naxal" and "anti-national" to denote those critical to right wing sentiments and evoke hyper-nationalism among the audience. Attempts to quell communal tensions through irresponsible reporting containing religious overtones have been alleged.The channel has been compared to North Korean media for its extreme pro-government affinity and muzzling of dissent. Noted political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot, journalist Dexter Filkins and others compare it to Fox News, an American TV channel that practices biased reporting in favor of the Republican Party.
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar, on Business Standard, noted it to be a "noisy, chaotic place where coherent debate without shouting, screaming and name-calling is impossible"; others have noted of its shows to be a "battle of babble", judgmental, brash and hawkish. Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar, in a Foreign Policy article, noted its coverage of the 2019 India-Pakistan conflict, to put jingoism ahead of journalism. Historian Ramachandra Guha noted it to be a pro-government channel, which ignored issues of joblessness, agrarian distress et al. and instead took to demonizing Pakistan along with opposition parties, furthering religious bigotry in the process.
Fact checkers have documented it to have propagated dubious or fake news, on multiple occasions.
Viewership ratings
Republic TV allegedly became the most-watched English news channel in India in its first week of airing in May 2017 with 21.1 lakh impressions and accounted for 51.9 per cent viewership as per data released for the week by the BARC.The News Broadcasters Association subsequently lodged a complaint with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India accusing the group of using unethical tactics for high viewership. It claimed that the channel ran multiple feeds over various multi-system operator platforms and listed itself at multiple locations across various genres in the electronic program guide, in contravention of TRAI rules.
TRAI cautioned the channel against such practices and determined the viewership numbers to have been inflated.
Defamation
In May 2017, parliamentarian Shashi Tharoor filed a civil defamation case in the Delhi High Court against Goswami and Republic TV in connection with the channel's broadcast of news items from 8 to 13 May claiming his link in his wife Sunanda Pushkar's death in 2014. Seeking the channel's response, Justice Manmohan of the High Court said, "Bring down the rhetoric. You can put out your story, you can put out the facts. You cannot call him names. That is uncalled for."IP rights infringement
In May 2017, Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd. lodged a complaint against Goswami and Prema Sridevi, a journalist with Republic TV, under the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act, 2000 accusing them of copyright infringement. BCCL alleged that the two, previously employed with Times Now, that it owns and operates, had used its intellectual property in telecasting certain audio tapes that were in their possession during their time at the former Channel. Alongside IP infringement, the complaint also alleged the commission of offences of theft, criminal breach of trust and misappropriation of property, on the two, on multiple occasions days after the channel's launch.Regulatory censures
In 2018, the News Broadcasting Standards Authority of India demanded Republic TV to tender a full-screen apology for use of multiple objectionable words to describe a bunch of people at a political rally, who were harassing one of his journalists. Republic TV "removed the video from its website and YouTube account" after receiving the complaint but refused to comply with the NBSA order, instead filing an appeal.The NBSA, the self-regulatory broadcasting regulator of India asked Republic TV to broadcast a public apology, after the channel declined to cooperate in a case accusing it of violating the standard prohibitions on racial and religious stereotyping and instead commented on NBSA having engaged in "intense pseudo-judicial oversight". Republic TV did not abide by the order; incidentally, Goswami was the convener of the committee that drafted the code, years back.