The brewing IPL scandal is still unfolding. Lalit Modi’s tweets unleashed the drama that forced Shashi Tharoor to resign. With the controversy turning murkier, TV news channels covered the IPL muck extensively to grab the share of eyeballs. The IPL row emerged as the top issue in prime time (7- 11 pm) coverage of national news channels, according to a study by CMS Media Lab.
The six-channel study (Aaj Tak, Star News, Zee News, DD News, NDTV 24X7 & CNN IBN), conducted by the CMS Media Lab from 1st April to 19th April 2010, to find out the top issues during this period, revealed that IPL row edged out important issues like the PM’s foreign visit and Dantewada massacre in terms of news coverage.The IPL row was more than six times the coverage of PM’s foreign visit. Interestingly, IPL controversy garnered approximately 40% of prime time coverage of six news channels.
The news channels ran 369 reports and 50 special programs on the IPL controversy. The controversy recorded 2623 min 55 sec (43.73 hours) of prime time coverage.
English news channels gave more news time to the IPL row compared to Hindi news channels. The study showed that most time to the row was devoted by NDTV 24X7 with 668 min followed by CNN IBN with 617 min 30 sec. Among Hindi news channels, Star News topped by devoting 504 min 45 sec to the row followed by Aaj Tak and Zee News with 404 min and 354 min respectively. DD News, a public broadcaster, gave least prime time coverage to the IPL row by devoting 75 min 40 sec of coverage, with just 32 reports.
Manali
April 26, 2010 at 7:54 am
gone are the days when cricket used to be the game of bat and the ball, now it just cease to be the game……news channels need a peg to grab the eye balls. Guess now is the time to be familiar with the terms like senasationalism nd dumbing down.