Republic Bharat being placed outside Hindi News genre, alleges TV18

TV18 Broadcast has written to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) alleging that recently launched Hindi news channel, Republic Bharat, is being placed outside its declared genre, that is, Hindi News genre, on various cable networks. Other news broadcasters India TV and Aaj Tak have also filed complaints against the channel.

TV18 further said that this action of placing Republic Bharat outside the relevant genre was a violation of TRAI’s broadcasting regulations – Sub-regulations 2 of regulation 18 of the Telecommunication (Broadcasting & Cable) Services Interconnection (Addressable Systems) Regulations, 2017. 

TV18’s contention is that placing Republic Bharat in genres which have much better viewership and ratings, as compared to the Hindi news genre, would give the channel an unfair and undue advantage as it could be able to catch the viewer’s attention and get sampled in the non-Hindi news genre.