Is this what we call entertainment?

My parents are back from the UK.  Along with them, my sister and my little niece also have arrived in the country (my baava who too had come along, has since returned owing to his work commitments).  Despite my work pressure I'm trying my best to spend some time with all of them - most importantly with my 'sose' Tanvi - the darling of everyone at home.  

Thanks to the return of parents I have been getting to watch a lot more TV than usual (which says a lot as I rarely watch TV beyond the mandatory news on NDTV 24X7 once, the odd sports and English Movies channels).  While watching the TV viewing pattern of folks at home and those that visit our place, I was dismayed at the level of attraction the serials held for all women and men (yes, men too).  Possibly because all these serials reinforce the 'Aadarsha Bharatiya Naari' image most men lap them all up more eagerly than women (and possibly secretly encourage their women to watch them and even emulate them). 

However, what is even more shocking (and dismaying) is the kind of 'news' covered by the local (local language and English) news channels.  I caught myself staring open-mouthed at these incidents being graphically depicted:

1.  A woman who's been thrown out of her husband's house berating, crying and alternately trying to re-enter the husband's place, along with talking to the guys from the news channel and relating her story.

2.  Another woman was shown crying and relating her harrowing experience of having to live with a husband who wanted her to perform in the bedroom a la women in porn.  

In order to grab more eyeballs and keep their audiences salivating for more the news channels seem to have stooped to a place from where it is near impossible to come back and make amends.  They had not even made any perfunctory attempt to blur the face of the 'victims' that they were trying to create sympathy for.  

What kind of news coverage and reporting are these?  How do they help the victims of domestic violence or sexual abuse?  Don't we have any standards for these news channels to adhere?  I don't see anyone protesting.  And, I see the viewership of these channels growing and their revenues doubling (and with each passing day one finds that more news channels are cropping up on the TV horizon).  

Is Justice (retd) Markandeya Katju listening/watching all this?