Republic TV

Republic TV is a free-to-air Indian right-wing English-language news channel launched in May 2017. It was co-founded by Arnab Goswami and Rajeev Chandrasekhar, before the latter relinquished his stake in May 2019, leaving Goswami as the majority stakeholder. Chandrasekhar was an independent legislator from the National Democratic Alliance who later joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Goswami was the former editor-in-chief of Times Now. The venture was funded primarily by Chandrashekhar through his company Jupiter Capital Private Limited.

Republic TV has been accused of practicing biased reporting in favour of the ruling BJP and stifling dissent; fake news and Islamophobic rhetoric were published on multiple occasions. It has been convicted of breaching Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and News Broadcasting Standards Authority rules. Republic TV is being investigated by the Mumbai Police after being accused of manipulating the viewership ratings. The inflated TRP was allegedly used to bargain higher revenues from advertisers.

History

Background

Arnab Goswami 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 by Subramanian Swamy. Republic TV was hyped as India's first independent media outlet which would 'democratize' news and compete with global media giants whilst being unabashedly pro-India.

Funding

Republic TV was funded in part by Asianet (ARG Outlier Asianet News Private Limited), which was primarily owned by Rajeev Chandrasekhar, a then-independent member of Rajya Sabha who had political links with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and was vice-chairman of the National Democratic Alliance in Kerala. Among other major investors were Goswami himself, his wife Samyabrata Goswami, 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.Arnab Goswami buys back Republic Media shares from Asianet
Live Mint (A Hindustan Times Media company), Lata Jha (6 May 2019)Arnab Goswami buys back shares from Asianet; Republic TV now valued at this much
The Financial Express (6 May 2019)

Recruitments

''The Wire'' and ''Newslaundry'' had come across 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.

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, who had earlier stints as Senior Vice President of NDTV, 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'', Minhaz Merchant and actor Anupam Kher.

Launch

The channel was launched on 6 May 2017 as a free-to-air channel through most direct-to-home television in India 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."

On 2 February 2019, the channel launched its Hindi language outlet named Republic Bharat.

Republic TV launched Republic Bangla, Bengali language news channel on 7 March 2021.

Notable Events

Press conference ban by Indian National Congress

Reporters from the channel have been banned from attending any press conference of the Indian National Congress, citing them being subject to incessantly aggressive attacks by the channel.

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 him to be involved in his wife Sunanda Pushkar's unnatural death. Seeking the channel's response, Justice Manmohan of the High Court noted: "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. (BCCL) 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 (IP) 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 offenses 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, News Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA), the broadcasting regulator 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.What the NBSA ignored in its Republic TV order
Newslaundry, Cherry Agarwal (8 September 2018) 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.

Around a year later, it once again asked Republic TV to broadcast a public apology, after the channel declined to cooperate in another case accusing it of violating the standard prohibitions on racial and religious stereotyping, and instead commented on the body being engaged in "intense pseudo-judicial oversight". Republic TV did not abide by the order yet again; incidentally, Goswami was the convener of the committee that drafted the code, years back. Two weeks after, Goswami along with other media-personas formed the National Broadcasting Federation (NBF) as a new regulatory body; this has since nulled the authority of NBSA to regulate Republic TV.

Unfair practices

In India, the Broadcast Audience Research Council is the industry body responsible for television-audience measurement. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India received complaints from the News Broadcasters Association against Republic TV alleging that it was violating the telecom authority's broadcast sector regulations with its unfair practices and sought an investigation into it.

According to the complaint, Republic Bharat had declared its genre as English news, but it was appearing in additional genres after registering itself in those genres. For example, in Delhi, the channel was appearing in both English and Hindi news category. Each "impression" that is reported in the TV viewership data, is an individual instance of viewing of the channel, even if it is a fleeting view. When a viewer cycled through the channels, Republic TV would appear twice, giving it double impressions as compared to other channels. Some cable network had set Republic TV as the default channel (i.e. landing channel) displayed whenever the TV was turned on, thereby increasing the impressions. These practices were seen as a deliberate attempt to illegally garner higher Broadcast Audience Research Council ratings and increase viewership.

The complainants, NBA also sought from the Broadcast Audience Research Council that it withhold publishing viewership data for Republic until its unfair practices stopped. The Broadcast Audience Research Council did not act on the request. Subsequently, multiple leading English-language news channels exited from the Broadcast Audience Research Council system. A news network also approached the Delhi high court against the unfair practices by Republic TV to inflate their ratings.

Ratings manipulation

In October 2020, upon receiving a complaint accusing some channels of fraudulently inflating their viewership ratings, Mumbai Police launched an investigation into Republic TV's viewership ratings. The police allege that the channel inflated its ratings by bribing low-income individuals, including people who did not comprehend English, to keep their televisions tuned to Republic TV; logs of WhatsApp chats between Goswami and the former chief executive of Broadcast Audience Research Council (the agency responsible for measuring TRP) were published to provide further evidence of collusion. The inflated TRP was leveraged to bargain for higher revenues from advertisers.

Goswami denies the allegations and has accused the Mumbai Police of retaliating against the channel's recent criticism of their activities. On 21 October, Central Bureau of Investigation got involved in the investigation, with the case now potentially covering every news channel in India. On 13 December, Republic TV CEO was arrested in Mumbai, before being granted bail.

Fake News controversies

Taliban takeover of Kabul

After the Taliban took over Kabul in August 2021, Indian media (including Republic TV) started an aggressive anti-Pakistan campaign on social media calling for foreign sanctions on Pakistan. Republic TV in particular later aired footage of an alleged Pakistan Air Force airplane supporting Taliban troops in their fight against resistance forces in panjshir. Some time later fact checkers including France 24 announced that it was a gameplay footage from a video game called ARMA 3.

"China Coup" rumours

In 25 September 2022, Republic TV used a sarcastic thread of German reporter Georg Fahrion to report on a "political coup" on Chinese President Xi Jinping in their news report as "First and Exclusive News" and Breaking News. The reports were taken down from Republic World's Youtube channel but got viral circulating on Twitter. Fahrion when informed that his sarcastic thread was picked up and published as real news by Republic TV, he replied, "Since an Indian TV channel is now "reporting" on this thread, let me repeat: Two things are infinite, the universe and man's stupidity."

Reception

Public

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 (2.11 million) impressions and accounted for 51.9 per cent viewership as per data released for the week by the Broadcast Audience Research Council. '' 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''.

The News Broadcasters Association (NBA) 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 (MSO) platforms and listed itself at multiple locations across various genres in the electronic program guide, in contravention of the telecom authority's rules. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India cautioned the channel against such practices and determined the viewership numbers to have been inflated.

These data have been since further challenged, after the channel found itself embroiled in a viewership-manipulation scam around late 2020.

Critical commentary

The channel has been noted for its right-wing opinionated reporting in support of 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. The channel has aided in developing and popularizing the neologisms of " Urban Naxal" and "tukde tukde gang" to denote anti-establishment voices critical to right wing sentiments, advocate government repression, and evoke hyper-nationalism among the audience. Attempts to polarize the audience and quell communal tensions by direct and indirect amplification of Islamophobic rhetoric (Love Jihad etc.) situated within a post-truth discourse have been noted as well.

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 cable news 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 notes 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. Jaffrelot reiterated accusations of pliability after undertaking a detailed analysis of all debates held by the channel until April 2020 (and contrasting it with NDTV); he held the venture to have a negative consequence on India's democracy and raised concerns about the manner in which broader issues of socio-economic order were pushed away from the discourse-sphere. Fifty percent of the debates were solely focused on criticizing the opposition and Modi was extensively lauded all-around whilst not a single debate was construable as being explicitly in the opposition's favor.

Fact checkers have documented it to have propagated dubious news or fake news on multiple occasions.

See also

* Media in India
* List of news channels in India

Notes

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Republic
Republic Media Network
24-hour television news channels in India
Companies based in Mumbai
Indian companies established in 2017
English-language television stations in India
Television channels and stations established in 2017
Right-wing politics in India
2017 establishments in Maharashtra