SIGHT & SOUND
NDTV’s finishing school
Amita Malik

I tuned in automatically on Saturday evening at 8 pm to Rajdeep Sardesai’s The Big Fight. A purely reflex action as I knew perfectly well that Rajdeep had left NDTV to set up a news channel of his own and he had himself told me about it. And it set me thinking about the exodus down the years from NDTV, which, whether other channels admit it or not, has long been the role model for professionalism and excellent working conditions. Yet some of their best performers, whom they built up to star status, have left, admittedly without rancour, but it is sad, nevertheless.

First there was Arup Ghosh with Shireen. One of the finest teams, Arup was liked for his solidity and Shireen for her charm and intelligence. Arup then joined Sahara TV and Shireen, I find, is no longer on screen although remains connected with the media. Then there was another stalwart Arnab Goswami, from the North-East. He will hopefully appear on another new channel to be launched around August 15, one is told. Rajdeep Sardesai is not the only one to have left a channel to form his own. Rajat Sharma is now running his India Channel, and in spite of some controversial exposes, has allowed Indian viewers to look at Al Jazeera. It has been a welcome insight into Arab coverage of West Asia. This sort of swapping has been more common in the advertising world for many years but is increasingly becoming common in the media.

It has also led to young performers coming to NDTV from other channels and then becoming prominent. A standing example is Dibang, also from the North East, who started off in an English weekly where he did not need to know or speak classy Hindi. He joined the NDTV’s Hindi channel and now has a position of responsibility, which he takes very seriously. Also, with the expansion of channels, NDTV in English has a lot of new girls as reporters and newscasters, most of them more at home in reporting and not yet exactly shining as newscasters. But it is a change to have a young man called Sengupta doing the weather report, which he does very well. Mercifully he avoids the irritating habit of some girls, including Navodita, who stand in front of the map so that you see them rather than the city or town in which you are interested.

But reverting to NDTV English, it has some very experienced anchors keeping the flag flying, such as Vikram Chandra and Srinivasan Jain. It also has some outstanding programmes that operate at a high level and with which other channels have failed to catch up. Shekhar Gupta might not be a spectacular star and I am sure he does not wish to be, but in his own quiet way he gets the most formidable exclusives in his weekly programme Walk The Talk. Now Srinivasan Jain has got his Bombay Talkies going along the same lines. I wonder why NDTV does not do the same from Kolkata and Chennai. The concentration on Delhi and Bombay leads to a lot of repetition, even Walk the Talk and Bombay Talkies repeat the same people who are also available to other channels.

NDTV’s Hindi channel has a solid team of reporters, anchors and newscasters. Some like Pankaj Pachauri have international experience as well.

Where NDTV still remains unexcelled is in extraordinary programmes like Gustafi Maaf and its English counterpart where political and social satire and the forays into sports require accurate background knowledge, an understanding of sensibilities and a quick uptake of daily events. No other channel has touched these heights.

So while the stars may come and go, NDTV will sail along on its teamwork, which is like that of our Davis Cup team. Its fund of established and new talent and the congenial atmosphere at work, which stems from the attitude to work and people like both Prannoy and Radhika Roy, has made NDTV what it is. Indian TV simply wouldn’t be the same without it. Its many international awards, including one given last week to Radhika Bordia for health programming from the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association, has proved that its reach is truly international.