"The charges are laughable:" Arnab Goswami on BCCL's police complaint

On May 17, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd, Goswami's former employer, filed a police complaint accusing him and his colleague Prema Sridevi of copyright infringement.

First it was 'who own's Republic and its parent companies ARG Outlier and SARG Media Holdings', then it became 'who own's "The Nation Wants to Know" phrase', and now the question is, 'Who owns the intellectual property rights(IPR) of footage aired on the channel'.

Arnab Goswami's 24 hour English News Channel Republic TV much before it's launch started attracting controversies. And the story did not change after the launch (May 6, 2017) either, on May 17, 2017 Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. (BCCL) lodged a complaint against Arnab Goswami and Prema Sridevi (former Times Now journalist currently with Republic) under IPC and Information Technology Act, 2000 accusing them of copyright infringement. BCCL filed the complaint at Azad Maidan Police Station.

"I think Times of India has lost its nerve and has become nervous, their viewership is less than 30 per cent of ours. I think the loss of viewership has made them nervous otherwise no one behaves in such a foolish way," is what Arnab Goswami tells afaqs!

He adds, "Completely amused by their behavior, I am sitting in the newsroom while they are wasting time in a police station. If they spend more time working on their content they will be in a much better position."

Goswami takes a dig at the legacy media business, "They must accept that new age media has now come and legacy media's time is over, so instead of threatening us they should devote time on themselves."

He thinks the charges are "laughable and ridiculous" he says, "Listen! if they had the Lalu tapes why did they not air it in last six months, I wasn't there to stop them from putting it on air."

So have you started meeting lawyers to respond to Times Legally?, asks afaqs!. "I don't take jokes seriously..." he replies...

Republic TV in its first week of operations, (May 6, 2017 to May 12, 2017) fetched 2.11 million impressions (as per BARC India) to emerge as No. 1 in the English News category. Times Now is No. 2 in the category with 1.14 million impressions. "I thank all our viewers for this historical feat. It has never happened before in Indian television history," he concludes.