To straighten the crooked you must first do a harder thing - straighten yourself. - The Buddha 

Near DEHRADUN, Northern India - This particular breaking news was the dreaded stuff of nightmares for India's US$5 billion cable television news industry: a leading satellite channel New Delhi Television Ltd (NDTV) filing a lawsuit in a New York court claiming it had been diddled out of US$810 million through fake viewer ratings. 

NDTV accused executives of the New York-based global market research giant ACNielsen, the London-based Kantar, and their joint venture Television Audience Measurement (TAM, India) of  
accepting bribes from rival channels to fudge ratings data. 

The already contentious viewership ratings largely influence which channels bag bigger slices of the multi-billion dollar advertising pie. According to a Pitch Madison Media report, the Indian advertising industry earned $4.6 billion in revenues in 2011, an 8% increase over the previous year. The Indian cable news pioneer NDTV suing for a record $1.39 billion damages showed the sleazier side, and serious growth pangs, of the world's third-largest television industry. 

At various levels and dimensions, India's print and television media struggle with cut-throat competition, as a desperate result of which credibility often gets admitted to the casualty ward. India has over 67 news channels - the largest number in the world. But with largely an entertainment content of movies, music, sports and cookery shows, the news becomes a sideshow with sensationalism than sensible coverage.