Banter on comedy was better than that on news

Guess which channel did I spend maximum time on last night?

NDTV 24x7? No, my favourite electionwallah Prannoy Roy was on air with Dorab Sopariwalla, Shekhar Gupta, Siddharth Varadarajan and Sudheendra Kulkarni, though the discussion didn't excite me enough.

CNN-IBN? There was a debate on the BCCI crisis. It was good to hear I S Bindra, Shishir Hattangadi and Sharda Ugra, but what I saw twice over was boring.

Headlines Today? The channel may have been pursuing the N Srinivasan issue for a while, but Boria Majumdar is unwatchable. The MPs Rankings report post 10-pm did grab my attention for a bit NewsX? I have been a little disappointed with Rahul Shivshankar in the recent past. He pauses too much and isn't as emphatic as he used to be when on Times Now.

Times Now? Arnab Goswami asked eight pertinent questions. The discussion thereafter despite the presence of Sankarshan Thakur, one of the better journalist-commentators on TV, was pointless.

India TV? I enjoy watching Rajat Sharma's Aaj Ki Baat for the ‘andar ki baat' but when there is no inside info, it's yet another news magazine.

So as I got down to go to the other Hindi channels, I accidentally stopped at Tez, the quick news channel from the Aaj Tak stable. And what did it have on a day when there is much speculation on who will contest against Sonia and Rahul Gandhi? A chunk from ‘Comedy Nights with Kapil' with Kailash Kher along with Palak and Navjot Singh Sidhu guffawing.

Palak did ‘her' jig and there was inane banter between the three.

I found myself spending more than five minutes on it, the maximum that I watched any news channel last night.

I may have been surprised to watch Comedy Nights on primetime news, but here's a confession: it was better than all the fare on the big 'uns I saw.

The quality of some of the guests is really bad. Sanjay Jha and Devang Nanavati!? Uff, Gimme ‘Comedy Nights' any day.

Pradyuman Maheshwari is a senior journalist and editor. When he's not chasing news, he's watching it. Twitter: @pmahesh E: noose@pman.in