The News Broadcasters Federation (NBF), an industry lobbying body for TV news broadcasters in India, yesterday exhorted Minister of Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur to look into the issue of resumption of audience measurement data for news channels, suspended last October amidst allegations of data manipulations.

At a meeting that Thakur had with the NBF board members, the news broadcasters highlighted the “need for the immediate resumption of viewership ratings for the news genre, which have been unilaterally paused and has severely impacted the sustainability of news channels”.

The NBF Board also apprised Thakur of the key issues facing the news industry, recent growth, trends in the news broadcasting sector and the challenges facing the news broadcasting industry in recent times, an official statement from NBF stated.

“It was a pleasure to meet and exchange views with the NBF governing board led by Mr. Arnab Goswami. It was a productive exchange of views and I look forward to engaging with the NBF on issues regarding news broadcasting and the role of news broadcasting in strengthening our democracy,” Thakur said after the meeting.

Founding President of the NBF, Arnab Goswami said, “The meeting of NBF members with the Minister was a wonderful opportunity to apprise him about the steps we have taken to build India’s largest federation of news broadcasters.

“The Minister has heard our views and concerns in detail and we look forward to working with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to make the news broadcasting sector even stronger.”

The NBF delegation, apart from highlighting regulatory issues, also dwelt on the initiatives taken by the organisation to provide greater representation to channels broadcasting in various languages and the steps taken to strengthen self-regulation among member-channels.

Group CEO of TV9 Network and Vice President of the NBF, Barun Das said, “It was a pleasure to be a part of the NBF delegation to meet the honourable minister of I&B. The highly competitive news TV genre certainly needs a level-playing field for new promising players both in the national arena and regional markets. We felt

extremely assured after our meeting today.”

According to Shankar Bala, CEO of Fourth Dimension and Vice President of the NBF after the meeting said, “Today’s meeting was really pathbreaking. It was a great opportunity to meet the Minister. He was extremely cordial and he heard us patiently. Whatever the issues were, those were addressed. We have particularly stated

it is essential to release the viewership ratings for news channels, which were unilaterally stopped.

“The resumption of the publication of news ratings will ensure fair play and a measurement-driven competitive news industry. We have a lot of expectations after our talks.”

Riniki Bhuyan Sarma, Managing Director of Pride East Entertainments said that the Minister gave them a patient hearing and NBF was “grateful” to the Ministry.

Kartikeya Sharma, Promoter of ITV Network and Vice-President of the NBF, said, “It was a very positive meeting with the Minister. The Minister heard all the matters raised by various members of the NBF.”

The NBF delegation included Arnab Goswami, Editor-in-Chief of the Republic Media Network, Barun Das, Group CEO of the TV9 News Network, Sanjive Narain, Founder/Managing Director of Prag News, Riniki Bhuyan Sarma, Chairperson/ Managing Director of Pride East Entertainment, Kartikeya Sharma, Founder/ Promoter of

ITV Network, Shankar Bala CEO of Fourth Dimension, Hemant Sharma, News Director of TV9 Bharatvarsh, Manoj Gairola, Editor-in-chief of News Nation, Mahendra Bhatla, Chairperson of MHOne, Divaakar S, Business Head of Newsfirst Kannada, R. Jai Krishna, Secretary-General of NBF and Eshita, Associate for Policy and

Regulations of  NBF.