Rahul Dev, Editor-in-Chief & CEO, CNEB

We want to be more serious and balanced and go beyond ‘breaking news’. We have a very clear focus on ‘Bharat’, which is distinguished from ‘India’. Most media leaders focus more on ‘India’, which is about 6-8 major cities; the affluent and upwardly mobile people are targeted and the content is advertiser-driven. While I would love to cover the 10 biggest corporates and all the metropolitan cities and their lifestyles, I would also like to cover Rampur, Indore, Kota and the social, political and economic life there.

Rahul Dev is a known name and face in journalism, both print and television. Having spent 28 years in journalism, he has traversed almost the entire range of media – 18 years in Hindi and English print journalism and 10 years in television.

A post graduate in English literature from Lucknow University, Dev began his career with The Pioneer at Lucknow. From there, the journey has taken him to weekly newsmagazines like Current, The Illustrated Weekly, The Week and Hindi publications like Maya. He was Executive Editor of Jansatta, the multi-edition Hindi daily from the Indian Express Group. Before that, he was Jansatta’s Resident Editor at Mumbai for six years. He also launched a Hindi eveninger there, Sanjha Jansatta, which quickly became the largest selling Hindi eveninger in Mumbai.

Dev entered television media in 1997 with Aaj Tak as its Executive Producer and anchor. Aaj Tak was then a daily bulletin on DD 2. After Aaj Tak, he was invited by Doordarshan to become one of their two new prime time news anchors. He stayed there for nearly two and a half years. He has been Advisor to Zee News as well as a prime time anchor. He launched and anchored a daily talk show, ‘Jawabdehi’, on Zee News. He has also worked with Janmat news and views channel as anchor and commentator.

Dev has produced and anchored 104 episodes of a weekly one-to-one interview with a celebrity on a contemporary issue for Doordarshan News called ‘Nishan’. He has also produced a weekly talk show, ‘Women at Work’, for Doordarshan and a daily business news bulletin ‘Market Mantra’ for AIR 2. He runs Samyak Communications that has produced documentaries on education, development and on voluntary organisations. Dev is a frequent public speaker on various forums relating to human development, voluntary sector, cultural, socio-political and media issues. He has been a member of CAPART (Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology). He was Vice Chairman of the core committee set up by the Union Ministry for Women and Child Development for a series of state level and national workshops for voluntary organisations. He is a nominated member of Kendriya Hindi Samiti, the apex body for the promotion of Hindi in the country. He works with several Indian and multilateral voluntary and developmental organisations like UNDP, UNAIDS, and NACO on developmental and communication issues. He is managing trustee of Samyak Foundation, which has sensitised and trained over 1,500 journalists in 12 states of India.

In conversation with exchange4media’s Puneet Bedi Bahri, Dev speaks at length about how things have changed over the years in the television news genre; the effects of the slowdown on Indian media; and Bharat vis-à-vis India.

Q. The Indian media industry has been reeling under slowdown for some time now. How has CNEB been impacted by this global slowdown? We have just started; of course, everyone is affected to some extent or the other. We are relatively new and our revenues are just beginning to come in, so there has been no direct impact on us as of now. Marketers, brands, and advertisers are cutting down on their costs, which is bound to affect everyone – existing and prospective advertisers, the current players and the prospective players. This, in turn, is indirectly affecting everyone in the media domain. There have been no lay-off or pay cuts at CNEB, but we are extra careful about our expenses and don’t want to spend a penny more than what is necessary to put our plans in action. Also, we are tightening all financial process, but at the same time we are also recruiting and we are spending.
Q. The Election Commission (EC) has banned distribution of results of opinion polls and exit polls by the media. What is your opinion on this? We are completely against it and I have discussed it in my live programme as well. We have gone against it on two basic grounds – one, it goes against the freedom of expression and the media and the Constitution; and second, it has been proven over several decades that this kind of coverage does not affect the outcome or people’s minds. There is no Supreme Court mandate or instruction behind such an order, the Supreme Court merely just mentioned that EC is free to do it if it wants to. This was also a technical Constitutional question asked of the Supreme Court. EC in its own wisdom has imposed it and every time there are elections this issue comes up, especially from the ones who are in fear of losing some seats.

It is really questioning and disbelieving the wisdom and ability of the voters, which has been proven time and again. The diversity and the size of the country show that these things don’t affect them. This, in fact, increases their political knowledge and gives a pulse of the polls. This is an amazingly backward step that EC has taken and we are totally against it. I think the entire media should get together; more importantly, NBA and INS should get together and take up this issue.
Q. What major changes in the Hindi TV news genre have you seen in the last few years? We are completely against it and I have discussed it in my live programme as well. We have gone against it on two basic grounds – one, it goes against the freedom of expression and the media and the Constitution; and second, it has been proven over several decades that this kind of coverage does not affect the outcome or people’s minds. There is no Supreme Court mandate or instruction behind such an order, the Supreme Court merely just mentioned that EC is free to do it if it wants to. This was also a technical Constitutional question asked of the Supreme Court. EC in its own wisdom has imposed it and every time there are elections this issue comes up, especially from the ones who are in fear of losing some seats.

It is really questioning and disbelieving the wisdom and ability of the voters, which has been proven time and again. The diversity and the size of the country show that these things don’t affect them. This, in fact, increases their political knowledge and gives a pulse of the polls. This is an amazingly backward step that EC has taken and we are totally against it. I think the entire media should get together; more importantly, NBA and INS should get together and take up this issue.
Q. What are your future plans for CNEB? What are the other states that you are looking at for expansion, and by when? We are looking at new channels, not necessarily news channels. There are no regional plans in terms of news channels, however, if the opportunity arises, we will look into it. Right now the focus is on consolidating the growth and creating a name and place for ourselves. One can see more infotainment channels coming from CNEB by the year-end.
Q. How different is your editorial policy from that of other Hindi channels? We have a stated public policy that we will not sell crime and sex. We want to create a news channel where people come for news and good quality content, content that informs them, makes them think, raises their level of awareness and engagement with issues in the society, a channel which one can watch with one’s family and like it.

We want to be more serious and balanced and go beyond ‘breaking news’. Focus is more on people and processes that produce events of all kinds. There is a huge creative competition, which is very healthy and is good for journalists, people and democracy. We also have a very clear focus on ‘Bharat’, which is distinguished from ‘India’. Most media leaders focus more on ‘India’, which is about 6-8 major cities; the affluent and upwardly mobile people are targeted and the content is advertiser-driven. The challenge before global media is how to deal with sponsored and advertiser-driven content. All advertisers want affluent consumers and media delivers to these consumers.

I am pained by this increasing focus on India at the cost of Bharat, which is about sensibilities, realities, strength, depth and the beauty of the real India, which are being ignored. While I would love to cover the 10 biggest corporates and all the metropolitan cities and their lifestyles, I would also like to cover Rampur, Indore, Kota and the social, political and economic life there. I hope there is a rebalancing of Bharat; not that we will ignore India, but our main focus will be Bharat.
Q. CNEB was launched in May 2008. How do you view the performance of the channel so far? I came on board six months ago, so I can’t really say what happened before that, but I believe there have been a lot of upheavals on the eve of the launch, as the people who had done all the groundwork and planning, suddenly left on the eve of the launch. The promoters were new in the media business, yet they held on and faced the several blows. I would like to believe that the ship is steadier now and we are more focused and clear about what we want to do. We are in no hurry to get to the No. 1 or No. 2 spot in the next two or three years. We would be happier if we have a respectable place in the scheme of things and we want to be considered as a more serious news channel. The content is what is going to distinguish us.
Q. What major changes in the Hindi TV news genre have you seen in the last few years? There have been several changes. TV news has gone through several phases, there were no precedents, so a lot of ideas were borrowed from here and there, a lot of improvisations were done, and a lot of experimentation happened. There was a time when there was just one news bulletin a day, gradually more bulletins were added, and eventually the news channels followed. The editorial people were mostly picked from the print media, while the technical people were picked from Doordarshan as that was the best at that time. I think what the Indian news industry has achieved in the last couple of years is really amazing. Since there were no precedents, a lot of experimentations took place, in fact, our distribution industry, for example, is globally unique.

The system that has now come in is unique, given its diversity. And it is getting even more organised and technically advanced now and has its own phases of evolution and growth. There have been a lot of changes in the content as well; in fact, the content is being churned on a weekly basis. Marketing has also gone through all these phases. It is still an evolving industry; it took 10 years for the industry to find its feet, but now it has achieved a certain level of maturity. Media has impacted people’s lives, and also affected politics in a major way. The last five years have seen competition growing manifolds. A lot of people have got into this business for the power and the money, while some have come in because of their journalistic passion.

We have also seen a lot of unhealthy content driven by one channel in particular; there have been talks and discussions around it. The fact remains that it was successful not only in terms of eyeballs and viewership, but also business. It had the cheapest programming technique, took nothing, did not need OB vans and huge investments, or expensive technology and news gathering infrastructure. All it needed was a few still pictures to make a one-hour programme, the rest was all sound effects. It became a norm for all and others started to follow suit as huge monies were involved. That phase, too, seems to be passing as those channels are now getting more serious about the quality and content of the news that they are showing. This again I see as a kind of change that is happening. We are now moving back to a more traditional form of news that we had been familiar with and I think this will grow. I hope and I believe that we are learning fast.