Why is India TV what it is?

This is the television channel which was launched with the best of intentions, as Rahul Bhatia writes in a recent issue of Open. But somewhere down the line, after it failed to make any headway with viewers or advertisers, founder Rajat Sharma, of Aap Ki Adalat fame, decided on a change in strategy. "It was becoming a question of survival," Sharma tells Bhatia. "If I perished what would I do with my idealism?"

Bhatia also quotes extensively from an unnamed former bureau chief of India TV, according to whom the place was a haven for journalists, but it struggled to maintain its ideals and, as Bhatia writes, "slowly, quietly, the bureau head believes, the rules disappeared".

And then all sorts of bizarre programmes began to be telecast on the channel:

The former bureau head says, “One day they picked up a YouTube clip and ran it, saying, ‘Shaitan ki aankhen. Dekho shaitan ki aankhen’ (Eyes of Satan, watch the eyes of Satan). They made a half-hour show around the clip. Woh dikhaya. Log dekhte rahe. Baad mein kuch pata nahi chala (We showed it. People couldn’t stop watching it).”

Read this cautionary tale to understand why India TV is what it is today: "The world according to India TV".