It was only a matter of time. Chafing under the barrage of excessive gloating and preening by Arnab Goswami about “Times Now being the number one channel”, “Destroying competition”, “NewsHour being the only show that matters” and so on, leading news anchors of rivals channels – Barkha Dutt, Rahul Kanwal and others – have lodged a complaint with the Competition Commission of India, the nodal regulatory body for promoting and sustaining free market competition.
Barkha and Rahul contend that it is one thing to be the market leader but quite another to brag about it incessantly and is a patent violation of clause a, section 2 of the Competition Act dealing with sportsmanship and grace while being competitive. “We can’t take it any more, yaa,” Barkha told The Unreal Times. “Every time Arnab puts up that pie chart of TRP ratings and claims that NewsHour’s TRPs are greater than the sum of the competitors’, I feel like reaching for the pistol,” Dutt said. “And by what authority does he claim to be asking questions on behalf of the nation?”
Kanwal said Arnab’s swagger was even worse than that of the Aussies under Ponting. “I admit, Headlines Today is Bangladesh to Times Now’s Australia of the 90s but can he please stop rubbing it in, boss? And will he please not show Headlines Today’s TRPs to be a micro slice of that pie-chart and just not mention us instead?” was Kanwal’s plaintive appeal.
CNN-IBN was supposed to depute Rajdeep Sardesai but the guy has apparently lost all interest in the petition. “He says he doesn’t care a rat’s ass anymore about Arnab browbeating rivals and in fact wants Arnab to grind CNN-IBN into the dust. Clearly, he’s not in a good space at the minute. So Mukesh sir has ordered Bhupendra Chaubey to depose on behalf of CNN-IBN,” a spokesperson from Reliance Industries Limited told The UnReal Times.
Ashok Chawla, chairperson of the Competition Commission of India, said he’s looking into the matter. “Prima facie, it appears like The Incredible Hulk eclipsing a bunch of second grade superheroes. Clearly, Arnab needs to tone down the swagger and stop psyching out his competitors. For starters, I have asked him to limit praise about Times Now to not more than three times during prime time,” Chawla told The UnReal Times.