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When I was in school, the pre-eminent news program was Prannoy Roy’s The World This Week (TWTW). Friday nights were sacrosanct. Like all good things on Doordarshan, India’s only TV channel then, it was shelved after a good run.

After the launch of his NDTV 24/7, Roy restarted TWTW last September. I watched it for a few weeks and then got bored. Seeing it again today, it suddenly struck me why TWTW bored me. I had seen every item a few days earlier on some blog. It was peddling stale stuff! Todays 30 minutes contained 3 stories and 1 “newsmaker.”

# 1 — Democratic Presidential primaries in the US — specifically, the Iowa caucus. This is so beaten to death. Every political blog in the US had spewed forth on it. NDTV itself ran a major item during the 9 o’clock news on January 21st. I’m not making a list. Browse thru my blogroll. You’d find it mentioned in at least 10 blogs.

# 2 — The French Scarf Scandal. Very deja vu. The Sikh connection was not new either. One more very-blogged story. Gautam Bastian has a take right here on AnarCapLib.

# 3 — A “culture” story about Basement Bhangra in New York. Om Malik was already missing it last July. NDTV woke up months later.

The “newsmaker” was Churchill’s 104 year old parrot with a flowery vocabulary. Sheesh. This was all over the web. Samizdata blogged on it on Monday. Check out Google News for 50+ news stories on Charlie.

In an age of 24/7 news channels, TWTW is outdated. When conceived, it was a refreshing change from government controlled news a.ka. “Rajiv-darshan.” Its weekly roundup of news and events did open a window to my limited world. Today, news and views abound and not just on TV. The web and specifically the blogosphere adds a vitality that continually surprises me with its variety and freshness.

Time changes, Dr. Roy. Maybe an NDTV blog might help!