News TV is too black and white

For a medium as alive and vibrant as television, and a genre that gets content that is continuously fresh, why is it that so few watch news TV? “While the share of Hindi news channels increased by 87 percent to 11.02 points upcountry, the all-India figure for their English counterparts combined was 0.54 points, as viewership shot up by 74 percent. In the preceding four weeks, Hindi and English news channels had recorded an average genre share of 5.7 percent and 0.33 percent, respectively,” Business Standard  reported in August 2011, as Anna Hazare’s movement moved towards its zenith. [caption id=“attachment_390128” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  If news channel viewership is hard to come by, news channels are failing in delivering what viewers want. Reuters[/caption] At the most basic level, people watch a particular channel or a particular programme because he or she wants to watch it; he or she is entertained by it; he or she will profit from viewing it; the content resonates with him or her. If news channel viewership is hard to come by, news channels are failing in delivering what viewers want. News begins with an event. Something ‘happens’. In the course of a day, many things ‘happen’. There’s a train accident, the Sensex falls or rises, it rains or it doesn’t rain, someone is murdered, a company launches a new product, a player wins or loses a match. During the course of the day, there are a number of ‘happenings’ which the editorial team is privy to, thanks to their army of reporters, sources and news gatherers. Editors sift through this nearly infinite number of possible stories to air and decide on which of these stories will concern their viewers the most and which will resonate. Up to this moment in  the cycle of news channels, everything is black and white. A train has had an accident, the Sensex has gone up, it has rained, and so on. Black and white. No news outlet can get a significant edge in this area. It’s the next area— the analysis of the news, of the repercussions of the news, the impact of the news, the interpretation of the news — that is NOT black and white. It’s grey; many shades of grey. And it is in this area that TRPs are gained and lost — the discussions on the news of the day by channel editors, anchors, guests and experts during prime time television. Everyone has an opinion on the impact of the news. Take the case of Oprah Winfrey’s show on India. The show, the content of the show, is black and white ‘news’. It’s a review of the show that will resonate well with some, and not well with others. Take a look at the comments  on an analysis of the show by Rajyasree Sen. As this is being written, there are 349 comments on the piece —some laud the writer, some are not sure, some pan her. There are great differences in how the show is interpreted. As is the case with the Oprah show, there are great differences in how most developments are interpreted by readers and viewers. And that’s what news television does not seem to get. Channels seem to begin with a predetermined destination rather than wait for opinions and analysis. The predetermination is visible in their choice of experts, in their choice of guests and talking heads, and finally in the amount of time, visibility and patience with the aforementioned. News TV wants everything black and white, which most issues are not, and not grey, which is what most issues are. That’s what is causing the stagnation — even the decline —of news TV. As news TV comes of age (in the number of years it has been around), so have two critical success factors —those who appear on it and those who watch it. To the experts and the guests, it is getting easy, almost facile, for them to figure out what position the channel has taken on a particular issue. The guests are learning to spar with the anchors, to outwit them, to threaten and badger them. To the viewers, it is getting easy, as well, for them to figure out what position the channel has taken. If the position is not one to their liking, the remote control is at hand. The danger to news channels is simple. If they carry on in this direction, they will lose out on their most valued content provider — the guest/expert. More and more guests are vocal and threatening if anchors do not allow them to voice their opinions or interrupt them in mid-sentence. Fundamentally, the guests and experts have learned that they are the content — and not the programme. When viewers watch someone they are sympathetic to being treated unfairly by a channel, they walk off, figuratively, to another channel. News TV must accept that grey exists — and most of the issues are nuanced and need to be discussed before there seems to be a clearer black or clearer white area. To get a sense of how divided opinions are, take a look at this debate on Firstpost. The motion was, “Unrest at Maruti Suzuki plant shows labour unions are irrelevant.” About 3,736 FP readers agreed with the motion, 1,489 disagreed with it. Mathematically, that is 72 percent for and 28 percent against the motion. In the case of day to day concerns of citizens, such as who should run the country and what could be done about corruption and price rises, the opinions are spread far and wide. The challenge for news TV lies in providing a platform for these varied opinions and analysing them fairly. It’s hard work. Hard work the channels do not seem to want to put in.