And there goes my dad again with his monthly whimper for mercy, asking me to text our cable service provider and subscribe us to BBC or CNN. Like always, I tell him that I only rang them the previous month and this time, that we even changed our package to get those channels, but to no avail.

This happens when the local news channels become unbearable and can be described to a D, for deafening. I would not deny the power the media has bestowed Indians with. Be it NDTV’s gustakhi maaf, Aajtak’s So Sorry or even Rajat Sharma’s Aapki Adaalat, all these shows have managed to win our hearts. Nevertheless, those very educated owners and TV Anchors of our country who had once made us proud have inadvertently brought home the idea that crap sells. Sigh.

The idea of showbiz seemed very appealing unless the so-called-apocalypse took the lives of some naïve people who believed in what these news channels had been preaching through 2012. Last year, it was AAP that made the dish these channels serve crispy, and this year Modi makes it spicy. After all, that’s what Indians crave for, right? Wrong, because overdoing the spice and the crisp never was in the recipe.

Without further ado, here are the 10 things about Indian news channels that irritate us the most

10. Too many ads

It is the same with all channels, I guess. But things really went overboard when I recently noticed on one of the news channels that even the laptop the newsreader uses said loud and clear, ‘snapdeal.com’. That is no cake to my eyes so it irritates me.

9. Soup for the Indian soul- Spirituality and Astrology!

Not to hurt our religious sentiments, some programmes are also hosted by Babaji’s. Nirmal baba, to name one, our very own desi controversial, commercial king can even make your Pappu scrape through his board exams. All you have to do is change your mobile service provider!!

If you happen to switch to any of these programmes during the morning, according to your birth sign you will be asked to stand towards the north-east of your house or office and say some chant thrice that day because it is going to keep evil away from you. And you will be like, really?

8. The sudden, ‘We are not able to reach our correspondent due to an intrusion in signal’

With technology, comes a glitch or two, or many! All of us have come across signal failures on news channels not once, but many times. The news correspondent would either not be audible or stuff would not be audible to him. And we as audience are expected to think of it solely as an intrusion in signal.

7. Entertainment, Entertainment and Entertainment!

Can we not always turn to the channels that air soaps back to back if we wanted to watch the repeat telecast of the show we missed? Why inflict such pain on the people who like to keep their distance from the saas-bahu dealings! With cooking shows, comedy shows, news channels try to cater to all our needs.

6. News anchor turned beauty queen

Remember the day when your mom smeared your face adorably with one kilo of powder because you had to perform at the annual function? Many newsreaders would not need to travel much into the past, like the rest of us. The visible powder on their face mars the TV screen.  I’m not really sure whether to blame the make-up artist or the HD cameras they have these days, perhaps it’s both. Too obsessed about their looks, sometimes newsreaders even embarrass themselves on live television.

5. Poor and huge graphics

While very few Indian news channels have amazing graphics, some others make our experience worse with their atrocious and loud graphics. What bugs us is the fact that these graphics would fill up more than half of the screen, even if we owned a 42” LED TV.

4. Gossip galore

Who made a wannabe like Rakhi Sawant famous? Yes, these news channels. From how the rival Khans greeted each other on stage to where Ash-Aaradhya duo was spotted last, they’ve got it all!

3. Inclination towards a particular party

Certain channels do present news in favor of a particular political party. It was not so surprising for me to find that most of the news channels are either owned by politicians or their relatives. Not so long ago, much mayhem was caused by one of Kejriwal’s statement about the news channels being biased.

2. (Yada yada yada)ⁿ

Repetition! This is something all of us detest. Consistently delivering the same piece of news through the day, and to top it off doing it with the same visuals, that’s when I exclaim India’s got talent. Some random snippet that we would not even like to look at when it is on the newspaper would be very elaborately discussed to pull off an hour-long programme. And it is only after we waste at least half an hour on the same news channel that we are struck by the stupid realization that the video playing all along was just a 3 second long visual put on a loop!!!!!

1. Breaking News

Are we all not surprised at how these news channels manage to get us ‘Breaking news’ 24X7? I am really amused at the lack of innovation and also a bit relieved that ‘Breaking news’ does not have a Hindi version. Break-up, Hook-up, goof up, everything makes it to the Breaking News these days.