Special

HNN 24×7

A new kid on the block, HNN  24×7 is Dehradun-based TV news channel. It was founded by Amit Sharma in 2016. As Sharma warms up to the reporter’s preposition, he is explained how his news channel is supposed to work according to his agenda.  

Samachar Plus

In a very short period of time after it was launched in mid-2012, Samachar Plus has earned itself the sobriquet of the No. 1 regional news channel across Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. With a catchy tag line Khabar wahi jo humne kahi (What we tell is news), Samachar Plus is owned and run by Umesh Kumar, a property developer-turned-journalist, who came to limelight after he did a sting on the Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat in 2016, few months before the state was due for assembly elections. Umesh Kumar also runs News Network of India (NNI), a news agency.

9X Tashan

9X Tashan is one of the most popular Punjabi music channels. Part of 9X Media, founded by Indrani and Peter Mukerjea in 2007 and now acquired by Zee TV in 2017, is India’s largest music broadcaster operating six music TV channels and www.spotboye.com, a Bollywood news portal. With a weekly viewership of about 1.50 crore, 9X Tashan is undoubtedly a leader on its own right, and with this kind of reach, one can fathom the impact the music channel may have on its viewers if its content could be manipulated to promote a particular ideology. 

UNI

With about 1000 subscribers including newspapers, radio and television networks, websites, government offices and private and public sector corporations across India and the world, United News of India (UNI) is undoubtedly one of the largest news agencies. UNI has news bureaus in all state capitals and major cities in the country. Sharma got a red-carpet welcome, literally, in one such bureau of the agency at Lucknow, where he met Narender Kumar Srivastva.

Amar Ujala

Anuj Tyagi, Deputy GM (Media Solutions), Noida; Navjeet Kumar, Marketing Officer, Una, Himachal Pradesh; Mohit Sharma, Asociate Vice President (Marketing), Bharpur Singh, GM (Media Solutions) and Kanwaljit Singh, Sr. Marketing Manager (Media Solutions), Chandigarh; Sanjeev Rastogi, Dy Manager (Media Solutions), Meerut; Harpreet Kaur, Sales Manager, Mumbai; Himanshu Gautam, Business Head and Ashish Vimal Garg, Sr. Manager, amarujala.com, Delhi.

Amar Ujala began its journey from Agra a year after an Independent India was born in 1947. From a single-city newspaper to 19 editions, the Hindi daily sells about two million copies a day across seven states of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu, Haryana, Punjab, Delhi NCR and Uttar Pradesh.

According to IRS, it has more than 5 million readers. As one of its senior mangers informs us, Amar Ujala has 72 lakh followers on Facebook, 7 lakh on Twitter and 2 lakh on Instagram, which shows its reach and ability to influence its readers, particularly when its content could be tweaked as Pushp Sharma found during the course of this investigation. Sharma interviewed nine senior functionaries of the daily at Noida, Una in Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Meerut, Mumbai and Delhi. One of the first senior functionaries to receive Sharma was Deputy GM Anuj Tyagi. Sharma briefs him on his agenda and asks him how best they can run the campaing on their print and digital platforms: promotion of Hindutva in the first phase and bashing of political rivals through Pappu jingles in the second. As part of the promotion of Hindutva, the journalist asked if his newspaper can promote speeches of Mohan Bhagwat on particular occasions on their digital platform.

DNA (Daily News and Analysis)

Launched in 2005 and published simultaneously from Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Pune, Jaipur, Bangalore and Indore, DNA is second most-read English newspaper in Mumbai. A joint venture of Zee and Dainik Bhaskar groups, the newspaper has a circulation of 456,000 in Mumbai. No mean a feat, it shows its popularity among Mubaikars, especially in an age where space for news in print is shrinking by the day. DNA in a matter of a decade or so may have earned for itself a reputation as a newspaper. Pushp Sharma decided to check if the DNA marketing officials cared so much as to defend this reputation and say no to his proposition.

SAB TV

SAB TV does not need any introduction. The network has been entertaining millions of Indian TV viewers with its rib-ticking comedies like ''Dekh Bhai Dekh'' and ''Tarak Mehta Ka Ulta Chashma'' for the past three decades since it came into being in 1985. Pushp Sharma called on the senior functionaries of the network if they could help him fulfill his agenda using the genre comedy that is their forte. Surprisingly, he found them ready for the job. Here, Sharma first met Parthasarathi Kuila, who is working as Associate Vice President (Sales).

Hindi Khabar:
Atul Aggarwal, Director and Editor-in-Chief, Hindi Khabar, Noida. Hindi Khabar is hardly a year old 24 ' 7 TV news channel, primarily catering to Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Bundelkhand. Editor Atul Agrawwal is an old media hand and knows rules of his trade. But when Pushp Sharma met him at his Noida office, Aggarwal came across a pro-Hindu whose aim is to serve the cause of his faith. As Sharma begins to brief Aggarwal on his agenda, Aggarwal reveals his loyalties: ''Jab main IBN7 mein tha wahan par poora leftist aur Congressi manasikta ke log the ... Toh wahan par aap bhagwa ke paksh mein kuchh bolte the anchoring nahi milti thi. Aapko lagta tha yaar pehle jivika chala lo man kee baad mein chala lenge ... isliye jab apna channel apna hua toh laga beta ab toh wahi karenge jo mann karega. Wahi karenge toh wahi kar rahe hain (When I was working with IBN7, there were people mostly with leftist and Congress leanings. So, if you spoke in support of the Bhagwa (Safforn ideology), they will not allow you to do anchoring. I used to say to myself, you have to earn your bread first and you can do things of your liking later ... so when I started my own channel, I do what I like to do. I am doing exactly that).''

Dainik Jagran: Launched in 1942 in Jhansi during the freedom struggle, Dainik Jagran is one of the most read Hindi dailies in the country. With a circulation of 3,632,383, it is published simultaneously from cities of Rewa, Bhopal, Gorakhpur, Varanasi, Allahabad, Meerut, Agra, Aligarh,  Bareilly and Delhi, with separate editions coming out from Uttarakhand, Haryana, Bihar, Jharkhand, Punjab, Jammu, Himachal Pradesh and West Bengal. According to the World Association of Newspapers, Dainik Jagran is one of the newspapers in the world with maximum readership. Over the years, the paper has grown into a multi-faceted group.

India TV: Ranked among top 5 TV news channels by the Broadcast Audience Research Council week 9 ratings for 2018, India TV is watched by millions of Indians. Before Rajat Sharma launched India TV in May 2004, he had already earned a name for his talk shows 'Aap Ki Adalat' on Zee TV and 'Janata Ki Adalat' on Star TV. Known for his journalistic candour and uprightness while talking celebrities into making confessions on his talk shows, he had promised his news channel would become Aapki Awaz, the Voice of the Public.

Jitender Kumar, Deputy Vice President (Sales); Gaurav Tyagi, Manager (Ad Sales); Sudipto Chowdhuri, Executive President (Sales), India TV, Noida.