Journalism of Courage
The advent of broadband internet into our homes has given us lightning-fast connectivity but it has also given television channels nightmares,especially channels that air American and British shows. Viewers,especially students,download entire seasons of television series within a day,giving them no reason to wait from Indian channels to buy the rights and broadcast them normally years after their release abroad.
Extras is a British sitcom about extras working in film and theatre sets; Weeds is an American comedy drama; Californication is a drama extremely popular with guys; Family Guy is a hilarious animated television sitcom; Flight of the Conchords is an American series based on a musical duo from New Zealand and Dexter is an American suspense drama. There are just some of the shows that top the download lists of students.
There are numerous ways to know which shows create the most buzz abroad and are topping the charts in the US. Most of the time its internet reviews,friends from abroad,peer recommendations and foreign magazines. The most popular is TV.com,which has a section that rates the top 10 shows every week. I just see which are these top shows and get them right away via torrents, Ankit Gandhi,another regular downloader,tells us.
And do the popular channels that air American shows realise that their audiences have slowly moved away? Yes,we are aware that our core target group the urban,English-viewing audience is net-savvy and downloads their favourite shows off the net. We do keep a track of the shows that are downloaded by the highest majority and we use the information as a reference point while framing our programming strategy, says Sujay Kutty,Business Head,Zee Café.
In fact,there are shows like How I Met Your Mother,Heroes and Lost that are aired on Indian television but are still among the top downloads. What they show here are way behind what is being shown in America,I dont have the patience to wait that long. Also the quality of picture on television is really bad. By downloading you get great HDTV quality, Gandhi,24,adds.
Television channels also feel the pain because they lose a majority of their audience because of this lag in airing episodes,but they seem to be helpless as well. We have contracts that do not permit us to air an episode until a specified time after its aired in the US, Jyotsna Viriyala,Vice-President,programming of Star World tells us. But we are now working towards this and are trying really hard to change these contracts.
Until then,ditch your TV and watch your laptop instead.
