TV – Complete Idiot Box

When I watch TV I really doubt the much talked about Indian television promise first-hand and obviously want to turn it off almost immediately.

There is no meaningful content, no entertainment just that we all together insanely end up burning so many megawatts of electricity for nothing. Watching TV is becoming a most frustrating act on display with every passing day.

While the exponential growth in the number of TV channels is amazing, the vast majority of the content is pathetic, so say mildly. There is lack of quality programming in all the three major content categories:

news & information, sports, and entertainment.

News & Information:

The state of this category is most shocking. In my younger days my parents will ensure that I listen to News Broadcast everyday to learn about the events happening across the world and how they will affect our nation or the world itself.

Listen to our news and it seems we are a nation with no priority or a road map at all. Amidst the Nuclear Deal the more important news is Sai Baba giving darshan at somebody’s house or how tears were used to light up the divas with divine power.

When they write the programs then why not simplify the Nuclear Deal for everyone to understand so that it’s a collective intelligence instead of political agenda being manipulated.

The meaning of “breaking news” is that they simply have just another pushed-to-insane-level-something-news-like for us. This on top is bundled with unnecessary and most of the times distasteful sensationalism.

Certainly Ethical standards of Journalism are pitiful. Or how else while covering tragedies involving deaths; instead of showing any dignity for the dead or for the family who are suffering, journalists have a heart to get that exclusive interview/footage. And what are those questions that they ask anyways? Investigative journalism needed to expose the truth has apparently become secondary.

Let Amitabh Bacchan go to Temple in the morning without covering it in leading national news channel, and that’s perfectly fine with all of us isn’t it? On the other hand give us content that helps us become meaningfully informed citizens, tough?

Sports:

Sports in India = Cricket.

Sad but true.

Yes of course we do cover other major sports events as well. There is coverage of soccer and tennis that coincides major global sporting events (European Cup, Wimbledon, etc), but the inability of India to produce world class sports persons in any mass sports except cricket will continue to restrict wider advertiser interest & therefore media focus in developing Indian sports programming beyond cricket.

GEC: General Entertainment

So who is whose fifth wife? Actors left but characters stayed, thanks to plastic surgeries.

Was there ever an original plot??

India is yet to see TV drama franchises of the quality of Lost, 24, Heroes, which attract record audiences in the U.S. season after season. Granted that it can cost up to $3M to produce a single episode of these programs, I believe the economics will certainly work out well in India given the growth in its television industry and a deep demand amongst audience who are thirsty for quality entertainment options on the television.

Not to forget that GEC category already gets the largest share of the TV advertising dollars in India.

The quality of content is so sad that recently all GECs lost huge audience to IPL where all the big matches were strategically and purposely scheduled during the prime time evening slots… Any learnings?

Anubhav Sharma

Twenty20: Are you on?

(Manu aur Ranjan) Manoranjan ka baap aakhir aa hi gaya. I really liked the ad campaign on Set Max promoting DLF India Premier League.

So whats your take? Are you the ones who unlike me think that IPL is bad for cricket?

Ranatunga calls Twenty20 “three-minute Maggie noodles” and no cricket.

Like in England they say that twenty20 format is “integrity being undermined” and believes it “will be unrecognizable in a generation”. Actually traditionalist English unlike us in India prefer Test Cricket over One Day matches concerned more about exercise in slogging, lagging the subtleness and overall finesse of the game.

Personally I think test cricket is boring though it certainly offers better chance to make money for those who are into ‘satta’ – illegal betting for English you. The English who are so concerned over the matter are ironically the ones who conceived the idea of the twenty20 format and now after the success of twenty20 worldcup only see it as a threat to test cricket. “I have a nightmarish vision of future”, wrote one prominent commentator recently “in which professional cricket is played solely in twenty20 format” and the “Test game is all but died”.

So what are the perceived problems here:

First, The format doesn’t follow or provide for the slower burning strategic elements of Tests that are appealing. To whom?

Second, The demand is for hitting a big score which is not a fair competition between bat and ball. High scores simply undermines the pure technique, strategy and means while hogging the glory.

Third, The money is driving it which sure will take over the less lucrative Tests. With every successful season you have a lengthier subsequent one; encroaching the time needed for Tests.

I think instead of criticizing the Twenty20 format and trying to write it off as a menace to ‘real cricket’, it would be better for traditionalists to learn from its innovations.

For me, its manu aur ranjan ka baap and I am excited that its come.

My own team is ready to fight it out. If you don’t have your team then get one here and just have fun.

Quick Note:

The DLF Indian Premier League today announced a revision of three matches in the inaugural season of the DLF Indian Premier League in view of the Karnataka State Assembly elections.

The Royal Challengers’ Bangalore match against Mumbai Indians which was earlier scheduled for May 10 in Bangalore at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium will now be played at the same venue on May 28. The home and away matches between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Hyderabad Deccan Chargers have been simply swapped. The Royal Challengers Bangalore will now clash with the Hyderabad Deccan Chargers at home on May 3 and will then travel to Hyderabad to take on the Deccan Chargers on their home turf at the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium on May 25.

All day matches are from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. and the night matches are from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. Only on Saturday, April 19, 2008, the day match between Mohali and Chennai at Mohali is from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. and the night match between Delhi and Jaipur is from 8.30 p.m. to 11.30 p.m.