Come every Thursday, a rather hilarious takedown of India Today and its sister channel Aaj Tak, is seen at the hands of Republic TV on social media, particularly Twitter. The takedown of the ‘double R’ gang, comprising of Rajdeep Sardesai and Rahul Kanwal has been rather grand this week, since only a few days ago, Kanwal had likened Arnab Goswami to Joseph Goebbels, the Propaganda Minister of Nazi Germany. While this virtue signalling and sarcastic grandstanding by Rahul Kanwal impressed nobody, Republic decided to have multiple field days on end, lambasting the journalist for his Twitter rants.
Every Thursday, the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India releases its television viewership statistics, which are also called ‘TRPs’. Of course, Republic TV maintained its position at the top with a magnificent lead, calling for many celebratory tweets on their part. However, since Rahul Kanwal had taken to preach the country’s most viewed media organisation, by no less than calling it names, Arnab’s venture took him to the cleaners.
Goebbels attacks with vicious lies. We replied with the truth. Unearthing the truth takes time because it’s not as easy as making up ‘facts!’ But in the end, truth has a way of surfacing. If Rs 15 cr was never paid, how could it be ‘stolen.’ India can not become a #BananaRepublic
— Rahul Kanwal (@rahulkanwal) September 7, 2020
Same #BananaRepublic channels that were questioning @IndiaToday for interviewing @Tweet2Rhea are hounding Rhea all over town desperately hoping she will speak to them. So why be a sore loser. @IndiaToday got an interview you wanted. Learn to lose with grace Goebbels.
— Rahul Kanwal (@rahulkanwal) September 8, 2020
Here’s what Republic’s response, backed with figures, looked like:
#RepublicNumber1 | It’s the new normal! @AajTak is a distant number 2 and @IndiaToday has outdone itself at 6% at 9pm. Take our advice, @IndiaToday @AajTak @AroonPurie, the breathing exercises will help your troubled news teams make peace with this #NewNormal! pic.twitter.com/Poe66U8kzd
— Republic (@republic) September 10, 2020
#RepublicNumber1|@IndiaToday @AajTak If only your hassled anchors vented their frustrations outside & beyond the 280 character world the new normal would sink in. @IndiaToday @AajTak @AroonPurie, don’t let India’s #1 news brand stress you. As Arnab says “the game has just begun” pic.twitter.com/jBK7Z8xQbQ
— Republic (@republic) September 10, 2020
#RepublicNumber1 | Dear @IndiaToday @AajTak @AroonPurie, the endless venting, ranting and brooding of your hassled anchors didn’t seem to help. Maybe you could pass this on to your news teams? It may help in redirecting their focus to the news. With our best of course. pic.twitter.com/i4hpNa58Wa
— Republic (@republic) September 10, 2020
The ‘senior’ journalist at India Today, who at one point was also Arnab Goswami’s boss no less, has not remained far behind his overenthusiastic colleague Rahul Kanwal when it comes to name-calling and deriding Republic Media Network. On more occasions than one can recall, Sardesai has referred to Arnab’s mightily successful venture as a ‘Banana Republic’. He also, boringly so, has invented the phrase “news without noise”, where noise obviously, according to him, stands for Republic TV and Arnab’s primetime show.
First time?😄#BananaRepublic https://t.co/TZqIPv3o48
— Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) September 7, 2020
So it’s now confirmed: @IndiaToday investigation shows that Rs 15 crore was never paid to Sushant Singh Rajput which the family claimed had been ‘laundered’ by Rhea! Will ED accept that their basic money laundering case has fallen? Or will we remain a #BananaRepublic ? https://t.co/t9TLY9UbG9
— Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) September 7, 2020
Meet India’s Banana Republic network: not journalists but thugs!🙏 https://t.co/o5WXp9UNHF
— Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) September 9, 2020
Meanwhile, much to TV Today network’s dismay, for the past two weeks, Republic Bharat, which is the Hindi channel of Republic Media Network, has been securing the top spot in the charts, dethroning Aaj Tak, which had been the undisputed leader of the Hindi news genre for the past 15 years. This seems to have added to the frustrations of those who are evidently jealous of the success of Arnab Goswami and his media venture, which by the way, is the largest journalist-owned media network of the country.
@modishLIVE Data for Week 35: Hindi News Channels .Looking for something more? visit https://t.co/CT4Nvm2Rub for custom data on TV viewership pic.twitter.com/xzHcxH2GCx
— BARCIndia (@BARCIndia) September 10, 2020
Republic Media Network’s aggressive and persistent coverage of the Sushant Singh Rajput death case has contributed tremendously to the English news channel’s lead over its competitors increasing manifold. Similarly, the pursual of the case on Republic Bharat has also helped the network dethrone Aaj Tak from the top position.
It must be remembered that TV Today network, under which Aaj Tak and India Today operate, had received unprecedented backlash for giving Rhea Chakraborty, the prime accused in the Sushant death case, a platform to absolve herself. What also drew immense flak was the shameful and un-journalistic conduct of Rajdeep Sardesai during the same, who gave Rhea an absolute free run for conducting a PR exercise for herself.
Meanwhile, this is not the first time that Republic and Arnab Goswami have taken Rajdeep and Rahul to the cleaners. Earlier, in April, when Rahul Kanwal had falsely claimed that India Today was the number 1 English news channel in the country, Republic had set the record straight by tweeting the statistics from its official handle, which exposed how Rahul Kanwal and India Today were slicing and dicing the parameters, to project themselves as the leaders in the megacity markets.
Competition has gone crazier than usual because the rug has been pulled from under their feet. Viewers are rejecting shouting fests and choosing to watch real news. Ignore the theatrics. Watch: Real news. Not noise. To each one of our viewers who make this possible, thank you 🙏 pic.twitter.com/qOsTtJamo7
— Rahul Kanwal (@rahulkanwal) April 23, 2020
Sir we can only compare where distribution reach is roughly equal and not in markets where our channel isn’t visible. Fact is, where viewers have a choice, they are picking @IndiaToday over all others. That’s a powerful statement from audiences
— Rahul Kanwal (@rahulkanwal) April 23, 2020
FOR THE RECORD@TimesNow @IndiaToday https://t.co/4QEumKePJB
— Republic (@republic) April 9, 2020
The latest war of words between the two media networks, in which Republic is of course winning, is making a clown out of India Today as it gets painfully exposed and humiliated for being not more than a PR agency for Rhea Chakraborty by running a relentless campaign in her favour. To add to the wounds, Republic is putting out sharp tweets which are bound to break the hearts of the ‘double R’ gang.
