Special news has come in from a Mumbai channel. It said that the Hindi news channel NDTV has been removed from popular channel packs. These channel packs belonged to cable TV operators Hathway Cable and Datacom which, in turn, belong to Reliance Industries.
The channel tweeted about this development on 3rd September. The name of the channel was #INDIANtelevision. It asked the customers of the cable operator via its Twitter handle to call the customer service number. The channel told them to ask why they removed the NDTV India channel from the popular packs. NDTV also asked to tweet to the cable provider using their own Twitter handles.
The channel themselves took up the call too after instigating the general public. NDTV Convergence, head, Suparna Singh and NDTV India, senior executive editor, Ravish Kumar took it up. When these two people were filing this report, the Twitter posts had gone viral. They gained thousands of views, likes and retweets. The situation became more intense when Ravish Kumar shared a video clip that NDTV shared across all its social media handles.
In his Prime Time Show, Ravish Kumar said, “Often TV News channels are removed from the channel packs citing operational bottlenecks. However, this matter is different. There is a lot of effort that goes into preparing the programming for NDTV. This program is not conjured out of thin air. There is a lot of effort that goes into producing the prime time showS. Employees type thousands of words from morning 7 am to the evening 10 pm which I do myself. We have a small team that puts in a lot of effort.”
According to Kumar, it is not good when the programming that is they create for others does not reach the viewers who wait eagerly every day due to the hurdles others imposed. He added, “This is an attempt to stop the ‘TRUTH’ from reaching the people. Unlike other media, I do not make prime-time shows by inviting puppets to the newsroom and allowing them to fight senseless debates. Behind every episode, I do a lot of hard work and the passion to bring out the reality in front of people. We will continue to work. Today’s program will not reach you. Yet when history will look back, it will note that this was the only program worth watching.”
Some Twitter users blamed the Modi government for the removal of this channel. This removal of the channel happened on Friday. However, Twitter is having mixed reactions. While some are supporting the news channel, others are making and sharing hilarious memes. A Twitter user said that though he does not watch NDTV, still it is ridiculous for Hathway side to remove NDTV in order to restrict their reach. He even questioned the cable operator if they received instructions from any government/ministry as they raise public concerns often? Or did their boss just felt like blocking the news channel?
NDTV is one of the most trustworthy and reliable media outlets in the entire country. According to them, their fearless questions to the ruling party are one of the main reasons why the Reliance cable removed NDTV from the pack. This was not the first time that something like this has happened.
