Amar K Deb, head of Channel [V], in an interview with Indiantelevision.com claims that the channel is “new media friendly”. Yeah, right: Channel [V] introduced blogs into their content mix in Jan, selecting 10 of 2000 applicants for shooting what Channel V called a “blogumentary” which was aired on TV...they repeated the same for two other shows - Launch Pad and Get Gorgeous. He adds that their production team “are the ones who direct the bloggers”, and “they make sure that bloggers create things that get viewers hooked on to our content”.

Someone please explain the following to Deb: Blogging is about free expression, so if you’re going to “direct” users and tell them to create what a channel thinks it’s viewers will find interesting - then that beats the purpose. Giving users the freedom and right to shoot what they want, how they want gives them a sense of ownership. It seems that Channel [V] is just just taking on interns for holding the camera, then. Secondly, I’m not even sure if I would term users shooting videos for TV as “blogging”.

The channel is also planning to unveil a “My India Report”, which Deb claims is based on the blogging format, for which they’re recruiting users online. I don’t know if they plan to direct “bloggers” for that...but there’s more on Channel [V]’s self proclaimed “new media friendliness” in the interview here.