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I&B totting airtime seconds for top politicians

According to sources, EMMC also tracks airtime given to Modi and a few other top ministers of his government

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Just how much time did various channels give BJP president Amit Shah's press conference to rebut Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi "khoon ki dalali" comment against Prime Minister Narendra Modi? That was amongst the tasks that kept the government's Electronic Media Monitoring Centre (EMMC) busy recently.

According to sources, the cell, which falls under the information and broadcasting ministry and Is the central government's media eyes and ears, has now got a new job -- keeping tabs on the airtime given to top politicians by news channels.

In keeping with its new mandate, the EMMC reported in a comparative analysis report, accessed by DNA, that Shah's press conference last Friday got 30 seconds coverage on DD News and 31 seconds each on NDTV 24X7, Times Now and NEWS X. It further showed that India Today gave Shah's 30-minute press meet a mere 20 seconds, while Hindi news channels such as NDTV India, News 24 and IBN 7 gave 17, 19 and 17 seconds, respectively. ABP News devoted 32 seconds to it and Aaj Tak 30 seconds.

According to sources, EMMC also tracks airtime given to Modi and a few other top ministers of his government. Besides, the EMMC monitors TV time allotted to important events, but not on a daily basis, said sources. When asked, Chaitanya Prasad, who heads the EMMC, declined to comment. 

The primary mandate of the EMMC is to track television channels for programme and advertising code violations. The media monitoring arm closely tracks 600 news channels with the help of 200 content auditors. It also updates senior government officials on trending topics on TV news across the country on an hourly basis through text messages.

The EMMC, however, has also been preparing a summary of news bulletins and what they cover. A recent message, sent out to top officials in the ministry, PMO and elsewhere, read thus: "TIMES NOW criticises all political parties for playing politics on surgical strike and states that all should unite against the common enemy. CNN NEWS 18 criticises political parties viz. Congress, BJP and BSP for politicising surgical strike and questions whether this is due to upcoming UP polls; also criticises Rahul Gandhi for his derogatory remark on PM. INDIA TODAY says that when unity is the need of the hour, political parties are engaged in blame game; it asks as to why Congress is leaking 2011 surgical strikes at this time. NDTV 24X7 carried an interview of Chetan Bhagat who says that Pak actors should not be sent back but they should make their stand on terror clear; says that world needs to know that Pakistan is inflicting terror on India and Pakistani actors should condemn terror."

In the next two years, the ministry plans to increase the EMMC's capacity to 1,500 channels from the current 600 to include other emerging TV channels.

The EMMC's earlier avatar, the Central Monitoring Service, was set up by the British to track anti-war propaganda on radio. Its revamped version, the EMMC, was set up on June 9, 2008, by the UPA government to monitor television channels and report on violations under the programme code of the Cable Television Networks Rules (1994).

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