Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh, podcaster Ranveer Allahbadia. Who has been at the centre of media attention this week? C’mon, you know this…
Ranveer Allahbadia aka ‘BeerBiceps’, of course. Forget the PM’s visit to France where he co-chaired the AI Summit, or the resignation of CM Biren Singh after over 20 months of ethnic violence in Manipur—a podcaster stole the limelight.
Television news, YouTubers, digital media, and newspaper websites lavished attention on him.
Major English newspapers, including their city supplements, covered him—some on the front page. He was the top news item across websites for three days since Monday—and counting.
YouTube news channels such as Barkha Dutt’s Mojo debated him; podcasters like RJ Raunak devoted an entire programme to him.
Television news channels ran lengthy reports on him. Monday evening, leading English TV prime talk shows discussed him—anchors Navika Kumar (Times Now), Arnab Goswami (Republic TV), Zakka Jacob (CNN News 18), Vasudha Venugopal (NDTV 24×7) led the way. CNN News 18 devoted three debates to him on a single night.
Ranveer Allahbadia has been everywhere on social media. He is the talk of the town, and, if TV news anchors are to be believed, of “the nation”. The news media, the police, the politicians, the National Commission for Women (NCW) have all jumped into the controversy to condemn the podcaster and call for his head.
This is the same Allahbadia who last summer hosted Union ministers like S Jaishankar, Piyush Goyal, Smriti Irani, Rajeev Chandrasekhar on his YouTube podcast, TRS: The Ranveer Show. The same Allahbadia who received the Disruptor of the Year Award from PM Modi in March 2024—with a pat on the back and a jocular conversation.
Also read: Ranveer Allahbadia apologises to 6 lakh followers on X—not on YouTube with 83 lakh followers
Incensed but interested
In the highly unlikely event that you still haven’t caught up with the reason for Allahbadia being the news media’s latest toast, it was his extremely offensive sexual ‘joke’ on the YouTube show, ‘India’s Got Latent’ (whatever that even means). This has been widely circulated and doesn’t bear repetition.
Three aspects of the media coverage stand out: the disproportionate amount of time devoted to him, the double standards employed by some anchors to judge him, and the dangerous call for “regulation” of YouTube and other social media platforms.
As you can see from the examples given above, Ranveer Allahbadia became the story of the day on Monday and parts of Tuesday. Did he really deserve so much attention—and didn’t the large-scale coverage only magnify the reach of his crass question to a woman contestant on the show, increasing people’s interest?
Did the “nation” really demand action against him, as CNN News 18 argued—the very same channel that held not one, not two, but three prime time debates on him on Monday?
And with each telling, the news channels indulge themselves in making Allahbadia’s offence as sensational as they could: “Perverted, incestuous, filth…” said Republic TV. In the evening, its main anchor Arnab Goswami would rage against both: “this is not content, this is dirt,” he said.
NDTV 24×7 spoke about “Time for coarse correction” with prime time anchor Vasudha Venugopal calling Allahbadia’s comments “cringeful”. In its headline, it quoted the worst part of Allahbadia’s remarks—why would you highlight and amplify something that you have described as “cringeful”?
Amish Devgan on News 18 India was equally incensed: “He is a danger to the country, he is a danger to society,” said the anchor.
On TV9 Bharatvarsh, the participants began to shout at one another; on Times Now Navbharat, the anchor warned that Allahbadia could not evade the police. The coverage was similar on YouTube channels: Faye D’Souza, on her show, called the remarks “sewage latrine level humour…”
As for the newspapers, frontline English dailies like The Times of India, Hindustan Times, and The Indian Express reported the Allahbadia controversy, focusing mostly on the police action (an FIR) and comments by politicians, such as Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. Hindustan Times gave the story page 1 prominence. In its HT City, it saw red: “Disgusting! Deranged! Depraved!” it wrote.
In their online sites, Allahbadia became the lead story for The Indian Express, HT, and TOI among others. Why, even business newspaper Mint’s web version reported on Allahbadia’s private life.
And so it went on and on.
Also read: Ranveer Allahbadia row reaches Lok Sabha. Thousands unfollow him on Instagram, YouTube
Highlighting the crass on TV
The question is: why was Allahbadia given so much importance in the news media? On her show, Barkha Dutt said, “…this is a very, very influential person…with a mass following… with access to power…BeerBiceps was so influential..,” Is that the reason or was it to cash in on the controversy? To gain viewership? For shock value?
You have to suspect the latter: again and again, across news channels and on YouTube, the “crass”, “vulgar”, “dirty” comments were repeated in their entirety by reporters, anchors, and appeared in headlines.
Anchors and channels went on to ask for “regulations” against YouTube, and social media. “Stop the filthy content,” said Arnab Goswami on Republic TV. “Time to regulate?” asked CNN News 18 and wondered if the government would formulate robust guidelines. “Time to clean up social media?” asked TV 9 Bharatvarsh.
Anchors spoke about how people like Allahbadia were “normalising” crass content and must be punished.
Television news has self-regulation—it would fight hard against government efforts to intervene or regulate it. So why call for government action here?
Perhaps everyone ought to listen to another podcaster Sham Sharma when he advises us to “…plug your noses and carry on….”
The author tweets @shailajabajpai. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)
enough over analysis of this crappy pervert //Hang all of them along with this writer .
The Opinion piece bring about some good points, including why highlight the crass comments and publicize it further.
But one thing I don’t at all agree with is the last section, where the author is questioning the call for regulation. I was surprised by that because I felt there is no logical argument/ comparison there.
Af fas as I know, The TV and Print media are owned by a group of people, who along with the editor take care of the self-regulation part of it. Editors, especially have experience in the field.
Can we expect the same from the editor of Ranveer or Samay’s shows? Do they even have an editor who looks into these things? If so, shouldn’t they have edited the creepy comments from Ranveer in the first place?
I believe they only look at what kind of content gives them the maximum views and clicks.
Or do we expect youtube to self-regulate? The amount of content that’s dumped on YouTube makes it almost impossible. Unless there is a law, there is no incentive for YouTube to even try!
How come this was not considered when the author wrote that last paragraph??? Please help me understand if I am missing something