 Okay, are you one of those people who watches Republic TV every night or every now and then and things that are not Goswami is God's gift to television journalism. Don't go away, this video is important for you as well. I mean if you've clicked it, seeing the thumbnail, you know that this is not a video which praises Republic TV, right? So stay with us, watch it because this is important because I'll tell you something and I'm not going to mince my words, you're not going to like it. If you're watching Republic TV, you're contributing to the destruction of India's democracy because Republic TV and the journalism that Anup Goswami does is dangerous for India's democracy. And I'm saying that based partly on the latest WhatsApp chats which have come out, WhatsApp chats between Anup Goswami, Editor-in-Chief of Republic TV and Partho Das Gupta, the former CEO of India's television rating agency, BAK, which collects television ratings and publishes them every week and tells us which channel is the most popular and which is not. The conversations between them tell us a deep, give us a hint into the deep level of collusion between that rating agency and Republic TV. And this is not just something for the television industry to worry about because it has a deep, deep impact on the nature of news that we get in this country. Partly as I said, my show today is based on those WhatsApp chats but more importantly it is also on the kind of debates that Anup Goswami and Republic TV has been doing and the kinds of debates that might have been propped up by this rating system and which has forced that entire news ecosystem to move into that entire space to change the narrative in news towards the right, push it towards the right, make it pro-government, make it pro-BJP and anti-opposition. It is a news environment in which anyone who asks questions is called anti-national. And if you're watching these channels, you're contributing to that process which is essential to democracies, questioning, you're contributing to defeating that process which is inherent and essential to every democracy. Keep watching this show because it's going to shock you. So before I get into the meat of these WhatsApp chats and how they've impacted the rating system, let me quickly touch upon what the rating system is. Well, there is an organization called BAK, Broadcast Audience Research Council, and they collect ratings of viewership data from about 40,000 homes. About 40,000 homes covering approximately 1.7 lakh individuals in those 40,000 homes, but collects their viewership pattern, how much they've watched or which channel for how long, and then publishes it as ratings. Now you'll say, how can 40,000 homes be enough for a country like ours? Partly that's a valid question. There are 834 million viewers, television viewers in India, and 40,000 is hardly a number in terms of the number of homes because in a home, viewership patterns are more or less the same. It's not as if there are three, four television sets being watched. So there are approximately 200 million homes. 40,000 are representing those 200 odd million homes. So you can understand that the ratio is highly skewed. And this data is questionable especially for news channels where the volume is very, very low. But forget about that because ultimately what is happening is that this rating system has been accepted by advertisers. Advertisers look at that data and that influences how much they're going to advertise on which channel. And in India, none of us want to pay for the television we watch. So all news channels are entirely dependent on advertising revenue. If there's no advertising revenue, there won't be any news channel. Let us be very clear about that. Now the point is how do you rig this system? We know that the way to rig this system is to go to individual homes, find out. Now these are supposed to be completely secret. These sample homes where meters exist are supposed to be completely secret. But it's an open secret that some people can buy this data and find out where these homes are. Go there, give them some money, put a great nice flat screen television set for them, a new one. Give them a separate connection. Tell them you watch whatever you want to watch on this flat screen television set. But here on the TV set, your original TV set which is connected to the ratings meter. Here is a list of channels you should watch and for how long you need to watch. That's what is given to them. They do that and it artificially bumps up the ratings. These are the allegations that have been made by Mumbai Police against Republic TV. Now the point is that is rigging the system through fraud. In this case the chat suggests that there is collusion between the Bach, the ratings agency and Arnab Goswami's Republic TV. And you can go to the site of Caravan Magazine and get the entire transcript. It's worth reading. It's interesting. It will give you a sense of how this entire game works. Now the point is, one right at the beginning when we are at the beginning where Arnab Goswami is about to launch his channel, Republic TV. And he's talking to Parthu Das Gupta and they seem to be very friendly. Again, let me remind you. The CEO offers an agency which collects ratings and therefore these conversations are clear conflict of interest. He shouldn't be having these conversations. And by the way, these are just WhatsApp chats. These are messages exchanged. We don't know because there are a lot of things where we see Arnab telling Parthu Das Gupta, please call urgent or the other way around. Call. Let's talk. They're meeting. So what conversations are taking place there? We have no clue. Here's the point. Arnab Goswami is being told by Parthu Das Gupta in a sense being advised. Then make sure that your disti is good. I suspect disti is distribution. That's what it looks like. Distribution means ensure that your channel is reaching an adequate number of homes. You know that not all channels come to your home, right? You don't subscribe to them and some channels don't come to your home even if you want to watch them. That is because those channels are probably not spending enough. They don't have the money to reach your home because cable operators ask for money. DTH operators sometimes ask for money. So it's not a free service. A lot of money is spent by channels on reaching you for their connectivity. So no channel can afford to be 100% connected. It cannot afford to have every home connected. Except for Doordarshan which of course is a must carry. It's a government channel which every cable operator has to carry for free. Therefore all channels choose where to be and why do they choose where to be? One, they want to be in their catchment area, right? So if you are, let's say a Hindi news channel, there's no point in being in the south or spending a lot of money in the east because you're not likely to get too many viewers there. If you're a Bengali channel, the same thing. There's no point in being in Gujarat or Chennai. Obviously you're going to spend most of your money in places like West Bengal and some parts of the east where there are people who will watch Bengali news. Now therefore all channels have to take that money and decide where to spend their distribution money. Arnab's response to Parthodas Gupta saying that, I hope your distribution is good. I'm paraphrasing here, you can go and see the exact words there. Arnab says that, yes, and in the south it's fantastic. Now Parthodas Gupta replies partly in Bengali and partly in English and I'm going to translate here. He says, bole dio where all, which means do let me know where all. Now this is something that is not something that the CEO of a ratings agency needs to know from a channel head at all. Why does he need to know that? His job is to be absolutely neutral if a channel reaches his, where his meters are well enough. If it doesn't, too bad. That's the way it should be. Is he effectively, and there's a question I'm asking because it's worth asking this question. Is he effectively suggesting that once he knows where Republic TV is, perhaps the panel can be adjusted, perhaps the sample homes can be adjusted to ensure that Republic TV is there where the meters are. This is a crucial thing because you could be watched by everyone but blocked in the places where the meters are and your rating, your viewership will be zero. Please understand that. But at the same time you might not be watched by anyone but the people in those meter homes watch you all the time. You will be the number one channel. That's the way it works. It's a bit like, let me explain. Suppose you're taking an exam and, you know, and in the university and obviously especially in subjects like humanities, at least in my time, I don't know about it right now. No one studies the entire syllabus, right? So you look at the pattern of questions. You decide, okay, I have to, out of these 12 questions, I have to answer six. So let me cover, let's say, 60% of the course, right? And I'm not going to look at 40%. I'll know it vaguely but 60% is where I'm going to focus. Sometimes what happens is that you are out of luck and most of the questions come from the 40% which you did not cover, right? But your friend probably covered things which are exactly what the question papers ask. Now imagine that the person who set the question paper calls up your friend and says, let me know what are the chapters you've studied? Which part of the course have you studied? Because then I'll set the exam exactly like that. It's a bit like that. I'm not saying this is what has happened but there's a criminal investigation going on. It's a bit like that. That is what the examiner in this case, Pathodas Gupta Bark is asking Annabh Goswami, let me know where all you're going to be present. Now we see on Pathodas Gupta repeatedly advising Annabh Goswami what to do, how to go about distributing, what stories to do. Because there's one more thing that ratings agencies have, which is they track which stories are doing well when it comes to news. Similarly in entertainment, they track what genres are doing well. So if there is a thing like Sushant Singh Rajput is not suicide, he's murdered and let's catch the murderers, which is what Republic TV did for several months. It is possible that he was doing it because the ratings people were watching it. And as he got feedback that people are watching, he did more and more of that. And it's pretty clear that that happened because other channels also jumped on the wagon. There's one more point in this exchange, these WhatsApp chats where the Pathodas Gupta, CEO Bark, ex-CEO, CEO at that time says that your guys telling Annabh, your boys are telling everyone that we are giving you daily reach data. What is reach? Reach tells you how many people switched on your channel for at least one minute in any time period. So if it's daily reach, at least one minute in a day that they switched it on. If it is reach within half an hour, then at least half an hour. Now daily reach data, I'm assuming comes at the end of the week when Bark releases the data. But in this case it appears that that reach data was being given in real time every day. Now imagine what advantage that gives to Republic TV. Just think about it. What happens in news channels is that people get, ratings is collected usually from Sunday to Saturday. And then it is collated and that data is then published by Bark on the next Thursday. So data of Saturday, previous Sunday to this Saturday is published next Thursday. That's when channels get to know it. So if you've done a show on a Sunday, you will only find out about 10 days later whether it did well or not. 10 to 11 days later whether it did well or not. And similarly, if you've done a show on Saturday, you'll end up knowing about it five days later. If daily reach figures are shared with a channel in real time and they will know which story has done well on that particular day. Remember, the cycle of news is very short. It's very small. News stories last for three, four days in general. You can drag it out for three, four days, five days. Most other channels will get to know six, seven, eight, nine, ten days later whether a story that they did had viewer interest. But if you are being given daily reach figures, this is what one can surmise. Because Parthas Gupta is saying that you have gone and told, your boys have told, and other channels are saying that I've done it. So if that has been done, then this is a direct advantage that that channel will have, because they will know how to react on a daily basis. If they see a story is doing well, they'll know whether to go on with it next day. The next day if the story is done well again, okay, let's push it for another day. The third day if it has fallen back, no need to take the story anymore. Other channels will know a week later, they will pick up last week's data, look at last week's pattern and follow their editorial will be pushed by that. Whereas someone who's getting data unfairly every single day will have the advantage of being able to track stories immediately. There are also conversations that we see where constantly there's talk about which story did well, which didn't. There are conversations about the use of what is called landing page or dual channel. A landing page is when you switch on your TV and your set top box, the first channel which comes, which you can't change because your set top box is warming up and that channel is on and you need to wait for about a minute to switch channels and go to the channel that you want. Sometimes what happens is the channels buy that landing page. They are on that landing page. As soon as you switch on your set top box, that channel comes, whether you want to watch it or not. So Republic TV when it launched bought several such landing pages and there was a discussion about it and there's a point at which Bhaktadas Gupta says that other channels have complained about your landing page. I've simply ignored them. There's also another thing called dual LCN in which a channel is available on two channel numbers simultaneously. A network available on two channel numbers simultaneously. So you're moving from one to the other, chances of stopping in the middle increases. That increases viewership. Both of these are things that Anab Goswami was doing and it was being done by other channels also. Other channels were complaining to Bhaktadas Gupta about Anab's behavior. Bhaktadas Gupta was passing out that information to Republic. Bhaktadas Gupta was talking to Republic saying we need a joint strategy in this case which is coming up in the court. You guys need to be there. Now there is a direct collusion between Bhaktadas Gupta as head of BAG and Anab Goswami editor-in-chief to keep others out. To make sure that others don't get high ratings and Republic TV gets high ratings. There's constant advice coming from the top guy who collects ratings. It is like as I said being in a class with a teacher constantly helping one student. Telling them this is what you have to do to win against other students. That is how it is and that is a completely unfair advantage. Now I come to the part about why this is a danger to democracy because till now it looks like okay this is just an industry thing why should we care. Why should I as a viewer care whether times now is rigging ratings and is appearing to be number one. Well number one thing that you have to care about is that the higher the ratings the more revenue a channel makes. And if some channels are blocked some channels are blocked from the rating system. Their viewership is shown to be much less than it actually is. Then what happens they don't get any revenue. When you don't have revenue what happens you can't hire reporters you can't hire news anchors you can't send camera teams who gather news. You can't even get good guests in your studio because at the end of the day experts also are giving you their time. So you have to give them some sort of an honorarium. They are not giving it to you for free. They are taking away time which they could have used for something else and giving it to you. So they deserve some payment there. When you can't do that what happens your channel tends to collapse. And the one which makes money can do a lot it can spend on promotion it can book ad space put up billboards which you can't. So therefore ratings make a huge difference as to which channels manner of doing news prevails in the new space. This is what you tend to get. Another thing that happens when one channel does very well on a certain kind of programming everyone else tries to do that programming. That kind of programming they all tend to follow. What is the programming that Anup Goswami has been doing and in Caravan magazine in the middle of December. Christof Rafferlo the well-known you know political scientist and India Watcher did a study along with a colleague of his. And that study shows that they took all the debates done by Republic TV and compared it to debates done by NDTV in that same period. And they found that in Republic TV for every one anti BJP debate done and by anti BJP where the tilt of the debate questions the BJP. There were 12 anti opposition debates 12 anti opposition debates. If you look at the time right ahead of the 2019 elections the entire space was full of anti opposition and pro BJP. So there are pro BJP and anti opposition debates. These together account for nearly 50% of all the debates being done on Republic TV and less than 3% of the debates they did were anti BJP. And even here they were anti BJP on certain issues they were not really taking a big stance on the government. Now you will say that what's wrong with that some people will be partisan towards the BJP some towards the Congress. Well let's talk about entity TV for instance often accused of being anti BJP pro Congress. The same article you can see has analyzed the period when the BJP was in power and it has found that most of entity TV's debates were neutral. Neither pro BJP nor pro Congress nor pro government they were neutral political debates. In the period when the BJP Modi government has been in power for every one anti Congress anti opposition debate that entity TV has done. It has done two anti BJP debates. Now you will say well here it is entity TV is pro Congress. Well here's the question to ask you have to remember that when someone is in power questioning that government or questioning the party which is in power is the job of journalism. That is the job of journalist. So if the skew is against the government or questioning the government or the ruling party that is what is expected of journalism. It is not expected that the journalist will ask questions to the opposition that is not democracy. Democracy is asking questions to those in power whether it's the government or whether it is the party which rules and that is exactly what Republic TV has not been doing. The exact opposite it has been trying to paint the opposition into a corner and it has as if you go and read that article you'll see that the language used against the opposition is simply quite objectionable. It is crass to put it mildly. Now you will again say okay you don't want to watch it don't watch it but here's the trouble. See what happens when the ratings are rigged? What happens when ratings are rigged? When ratings are rigged in the entire industry it appears that this kind of programming is being watched. This is what viewers want and what does the entire industry do? The entire industry tries to copy that kind of programming. Now when it comes to being extreme right wing, hard extreme nationalist and I'm being polite here really and being literally jingoistic right? Often bordering on fake news. There's no one to beat Republic TV actually. There's no one to beat Republic TV. Trying to beat someone at what they're very good at because Republic TV has set the agenda. Whatever it does bark system appears to have been rigged to give it an advantage. So in an agenda where Republic is the best it is always going to be the best. That is all you get to watch because any channel you switch to is showing exactly that. So obviously if every channel is showing let's say how to make pizzas, which one will you choose? The channel which shows the best pizza chef. You're not going to choose, you're not going to go to channels where the people home bakers showing you how to make it. So if Onnab is the best at right wing, pro BJP, extreme nationalist, jingoist, anti-Pakistan kind of anti-liberal kind of programming. Then the also runs are not going to do very well but the entire space is going to be taken over. Entire new space is going to be taken over by these people. So that is the point that is worth watching out because that is what has caused this great danger to democracy that I'm talking about. An entire new space which is only in favor of the government, which is only in favor of those in power which only favors the ruling party and attacks the opposition every time it asks questions. It does not attack it only when it thinks that the opposition has asked wrong questions. It attacks it every time the opposition asks questions and it tries to paint all opposition leaders as nincompoops. And therefore it is very, very important that this news atmosphere, this news discourse, this narrative is broken. That it is that people who ask questions who speak truth to power find a space to speak. Because only when the rating system is cleaned up, when people get to watch and those who are asking questions get rewarded that others will follow suit as well. So that narrative will be cleaned up. There will be a republic TV. No one's stopping that. But there also should be people who are on the other side of the end. Because if you look at the US for instance, there is a Fox News but there's also an MSNBC. They have the right to fight it out in whatever way and find their viewers. When the rating system is queued, system is queued in such a way that only republic TV wins and everyone else loses then the entire system gets queued towards one side. All of political discourse gets queued towards the right. Consent is manufactured in this way. So if you're watching republic TV, if you're supporting Ornab every day, then you're contributing to that manufacturing of consent, that destruction of democracy.