NBF Governing Board meets Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur regarding Key issues faced by the news industry

Governing Board members and senior member broadcasters of News Broadcasters Federation (NBF), India’s largest body of news broadcasters, held a productive meeting with the Union Information & Broadcasting Minister Mr. Anurag Thakur on Tuesday, 18th August’21. The Governing Board of the NBF apprised the Union Minister on key issues facing the news industry, the recent growth and trends in the news broadcasting sector and the challenges facing the news broadcasting industry in recent times. During the meeting, members of the NBF highlighted the need for the immediate resumption of viewership ratings for the news genre, which have been unilaterally paused and has severely impacted the sustainability of news channels.

Union Information & Broadcasting Minister Mr Anurag Thakur said, “It was a pleasure to meet and exchange views with the NBF governing board led by Mr. Arnab Goswami. It was a productive exchange of views and I look forward to engaging with the NBF on issues regarding news broadcasting and the role of news broadcasting in strengthening our democracy.” Founding President of the NBF Mr. Goswami said, “The meeting of NBF members with the Minister was a wonderful opportunity to apprise him about the steps we have taken to build India’s largest federation of news broadcasters. The Minister has heard our views and concerns in detail and we look forward to working with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to make the news broadcasting sector even stronger.” 

The NBF Governing Board also apprised the Union Minister of the initiatives taken by the NBF to provide greater representation to channels broadcasting in various languages and on further steps to strengthen self-regulation among NBF member channels. Group CEO of News9 Network and Vice President of the NBF Mr. Barun Das said, “It was a pleasure to be a part of the NBF delegation to meet the honorable minister of I&B. The highly competitive news TV genre certainly needs a level-playing field for new promising players both in the national arena and regional markets. We felt extremely assured after our meeting today.”

Manoj Gairola, Editor -in-Chief & Director, News Nation Network said, “The biggest issue which our industry faces today is the absence of viewership ratings. We presented the same to the Honorable Minister and he herd us very well. We are hopeful that the rating will resume soon. The second issue we presented in the meeting was regarding the transparency in BARC” In its meeting with the Minister, the NBF also submitted that it is essential for news viewership ratings to be released for the greater good of all the stake holders of the industry.

The NBF delegation included Arnab Goswami, Editor-in-Chief of the Republic Media Network, Barun Das, CEO of the TV9 News Network, Sanjive Narain, Founder/Managing Director of Prag News, Riniki Bhuyan Sarma, Chairperson/ Managing Director of Pride East Entertainment, Kartikeya Sharma, Founder/ Promoter of ITV Network, Shankar Bala of CEO-Fourth Dimension, Hemant Sharma, News Director of TV9 Bharatvarsh, Manoj Gairola, Editor-in-chief of News Nation, Mahendra Bhatla, Chairperson of MHOne, Divaakar S, Business Head of Newsfirst Kannada, R. Jai Krishna, Secretary-General of NBF and Eshita, Associate for Policy and Regulations of NBF.

HIGHLIGHTS

• The Governing Board of the NBF apprised the Union Minister on key issues facing the news industry
• Members of the NBF highlighted the need for the immediate resumption of viewership ratings
• It was a pleasure to meet and exchange views with the NBF governing board: Anurag Thakur