What will prime-time – and Twitter – be without Arnab Goswami? Reports on Tuesday suggested that the editor-in-chief of Times Now and Newshour anchor said in an editorial meeting that he is resigning from the channel that he built and turned into something of a cultural icon.
There has not been any official announcement from either the channel or the anchor, yet there had been suggestions that Goswami would be looking to build something beyond Times Now. For sometime now, the Newshour anchor has been saying that India will eventually host a global media empire that could challenge Western media hegemony.
There have also been murmurs of others who might be willing to put their money behind Goswami and help him break away from the Times Group, some of which seemed to have been confirmed on Tuesday when the anchor reportedly told his editorial team that he might look to start a media channel or venture of his own.
Even without being on Twitter himself, Goswami and his channel have helped drive plenty of conversations on the social media network – always offering plenty of fodder, albeit not always complementary. Naturally, with news like this, Twitter decided to pay tribute back to the man.
Beyond the obvious nation-wants-to-know joke, there were also questions raised about how exactly Goswami delivered his resignation.
There was also lots of speculation about what might come next, including the expected jokes about Tata Sons, which also saw some high-profile leadership changes of late.
Goswami, in the editorial meeting, reportedly told his colleagues that he might be looking to start a new media venture. That means, despite all the celebrations on Twitter, Goswami is most likely not leaving our TV screens – he's seemingly too lucrative of a property for that to happen anyway. Instead, it's more likely that Times Now's domination is coming to an end, and instead we might now see a new channel that is even more geared to Goswami's highly editorialised sense of news.
For those who are already nostalgic, of course, Goswami is back on the Newshour after a Diwali break on November 1 – which some are saying might be the last show he does for a while. And you can always go back and look at the wonderful music that he has inspired, or check out this timely compilation.
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