Republic TV is an Indian English-language news television channel. It broadcasts from its studios in Mumbai and Bangalore. Created by former Times Now Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami, it was launched on 6 May 2017 It is owned by Rajeev Chandrasekhar, vice-chairman of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition National Democratic Alliance in its Kerala wing, and others including Goswami, along with his wife Samyabrata Ray..
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History
Arnab Goswami, then Editor-in-Chief of an English news channel Times Now, resigned from the channel on 1 November 2016. On 14 November, he hosted for the last time The Newshour Debate. On 16 December, Goswami announced that he is coming up with his new venture, a news channel called Republic.
However, in January 2017, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy wrote to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting that the name Republic was in violation of Emblems and Names (Prevention of improper use) Act 1950.
As a result, the name changed to Republic TV and the same was communicated to the Ministry by Goswami through a letter.
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Launch
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, an entrepreneur, and an independent Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha, also the vice-chairman of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition National Democratic Alliance in its Kerala wing, invested in ARG Outlier Media Private Ltd., a company which Republic TV was reported to be a part of. Through companies owned by him, he invested INR30 crore (US$4.7 million) in it. The other major investor was Goswami himself along with his wife, Ramdas Pai, Ramakanta Panda et al all of whom invested through SARG Media Holding Private Ltd.
S. Sundaram, who had served as the CFO for Times Now between 2005 and 2012, was named the Group CFO for Republic TV. Others who joined included senior anchor and Deputy Assignment Editor of Tamil news channel Thanthi TV, S. A. Hariharan; retired army officer and television personality Major Gaurav Arya chief business officer of Reliance Broadcast Network Vikas Khanchandani as the CEO, co-founder of The News Minute Chitra Subramaniam as editorial adviser, former chief correspondent from Jammu and Kashmir for Times Now Aditya Raj Kaul, writer and founder-editor of Gentleman and Business Barons, Minhaz Merchant and actor Anupam Kher.
It was launched on 6 May 2017 as a free-to-air channel through most DTH services and cable television operators, alongside mobile platforms such as JioTV and Hotstar. Reporting on its launch, Business Standard wrote, "The company has already hired 300 people, of whom 215 are on board. A state-of-the-art-studio is being built in Mumbai's Lower Parel area."
Reception
Viewership ratings
Republic TV became the most-watched English news channel in India in its first week of airing with 2.11 million impressions and accounted for 51.9 per cent viewership as per data released for the week by the Broadcast Audience Research Council.
On 12 May 2017, the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) lodged a complaint with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) accusing the group of using unethical tactics to claim a high viewership. It claimed that the channel ran multiple feeds on various multi-system operator (MSO) platforms. The complaint added that the channel listed itself at multiple locations across various genres in the electronic program guide of various MSOs and other distributors on multiple logical channel numbers (LCNs), which supposedly violated the TRAI rules for unique genre and a unique LCN. Subsequently, the TRAI ruled in favour of NBA issuing a mandate against future use of multiple LCNs.
Criticism
The channel was subject to criticism by certain sections of the media which accused it of biased, opinionated and judgmental reporting. Some also called out its style of reporting "loud" and "noisy".
Controversies
On 17 May, Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd. (BCCL) lodged a complaint against Goswami and Prema Sridevi, a journalist with Republic TV, under the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act, 2000 accusing them of copyright infringement. BCCL alleged that the two, previously employed with Times Now, that it owns and operates, had used its intellectual property (IP) in telecasting certain audio tapes that were in their possession during their time at the former Channel. Alongside IP infringement, the complaint also alleged commission of offences of theft, criminal breach of trust and misappropriation of property, on the two, on multiple occasions days after the channel's launch.
On 26 May, Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor filed a civil defamation case in the Delhi High Court against Goswami and Republic TV in connection with the channel's broadcast of news items from 8 to 13 May claiming his link in his wife Sunanda Pushkar's death in 2014. Seeking the channel's response, Justice Manmohan of the High Court said, "Bring down the rhetoric. You can put out your story, you can put out the facts. You cannot call him names. That is uncalled for."
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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