The short point about “too many commercials” is that TV requires loads of money to run and ads bring in the money. There’s no getting away from this, unless you have access to technological solutions like TiVo (this gadget is hugely popular in America and it allows you, under certain conditions, to fast forward through commercials).

BBC, I would be reminded by many, runs without ads. The short answer to that is that the British public funds BBC through a TV tax. The important point is not that BBC should not accept ads but that if it does, it should not get public funding. BBC’s hugely popular website is planning to accept ads and the New York Times reported on October 30 that some BBC employees are most upset at this. Integrity and independence are apparently at stake. I am not so sure. And don’t say BBC’s programming is better than that on most ad-funded TV channels. That’s the fault of TV stations, not advertisers.

And that provides an appropriate context for an admission: I had expected TV news to go over-the-top on the “justice for...” stories ever since the death sentence was handed out in the Mattoo case. Initial evidence — anchors and correspondents on NDTV, CNN-IBN, Aaj Tak editorialising on people’s joy and “feeling of safety” — seemed to suggest that the distinction between “my news” and TV news may get blurred. But major channels recovered the balance. There were stories, on CNN-IBN, for example, on whether we should react to death sentences on principle. Even when Ram Jethmalani asked on Friday for a shift of venue in the Jessica case, alleging prejudiced trial environment, there was a sense of proportion in reporting the story. Times Now reported the same day that the J&K sex scandal trial was to resume in Chandigarh. I thought Times Now missed a good and obvious story: the broad question of shifting trial venues by looking at the two relevant stories of the day.

Times Now did interview Jethmalani. I didn’t watch it beyond the first commercial break. But I am not complaining.