Thursday, October 20, 2005
The Idiot Box
What's wrong with television channels, especially news channels, these days? In the afternoon, they spend hours covering an astrologer's prediction of his own death in Madhya Pradesh. Of course, the astrologer didn't keep his date with destiny, and channels flashed the message: "Kunjilal nahin mara" (Kunjilal did not die). Later in the day, they wasted hours of prime time, covering the moon rise (with special sections on: Tu hi mera chand, chand ka deedar, etc) and interviewing women, their in-laws, their husband, children, uncle, neighbours, dogs, etc for karwa chouth.
Do these events deserve such extensive coverage? Is that what people want to watch?
Give me Fame Gurukul and reruns of Friends, any day!
Do these events deserve such extensive coverage? Is that what people want to watch?
Give me Fame Gurukul and reruns of Friends, any day!
# posted by Ashok @ 9:45 PM 
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what i would say is, television (or most popular media) try to give the people (or the masses) exactly what they want....am guessing there are more people in our country who would want to watch an astrologer keep his date with destiny (or not!), than those who would want to watch re-runs of friends :)
the most striking example that hits me is those saas-bahu serials....i would rather stare out of my window for half an hour than have to watch one of those...but there are people who not only watch them, but are also actually affected by what happens in them!
P.S: i notice you have disabled comments from all except blogger users...the word verification i understand, but why only blogger users? :)
the most striking example that hits me is those saas-bahu serials....i would rather stare out of my window for half an hour than have to watch one of those...but there are people who not only watch them, but are also actually affected by what happens in them!
P.S: i notice you have disabled comments from all except blogger users...the word verification i understand, but why only blogger users? :)
I think giving people what they want is just an excuse used by the media to dumb themselves down. I am sure there will be a lot of interest in serious programming as well as reporting. I have no complaints with Saas Bahu serials. But when you cover trivial events under the guise of live news coverage, that is when I have a problem. I don't think people want to read about politics and more politics, but that's exactly what the media feeds us, although to a lesser degree now than say five years ago. So where's the question of giving people what they want to read? I think much of the media lives in an ivory tower (I know because I did). What's important to us we assume is important to people. So you have trivial news about media personalities making big news. That's how it is.
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