It’s awful kind of TRAI to peer into the television screen and see what’s happening. We’re awful grateful except that we’re, also, awful mad. That’s the entire TV industry and the commodities they sell to advertisers — you and me. Our tale of woe reads something like this: those who bought the CAS set top box are sad because they bought it and might be stuck with it while others might never have to buy it; those who have not bought it are sad because they might have to, in which case, they might as well have bought it in the first place and not missed a single episode of The Bold and the Beautiful; both are unhappy because they have to pay more for more or less the same services and, in Chennai they’re unhappy because they’re happy: not needing set boxes (most popular channels are free-to-air) they don’t get to hog the headlines with their unhappiness. Got that? The broadcasters’ grief has TV serials weeping so copiously they could be condensed into this year’s monsoon clouds. If CAS is implemented, advertisers will learn just how many watch their channels in South Delhi and should the numbers be low, they’ll reduce their ads for South Delhi. If CAS is not implemented, everyone will say the broadcasters bribed the government, TRAI, etc., and that they’re anti-consumer. That’s worse than being anti-national. The cable industry is miserable because it has set top boxes no one wants — even those who have them. They receive dirty calls at midnight: ‘‘Why have you cut off Tom & Jerry, you cartoon?’’ The broadcasters demand more subscribers out of them, the subscribers demand more channels out of them — it’s got so, they’re thinking of hanging themselves from their satellite dishes for supporting CAS. Who’s happy? The Central government which after, cleverly, dumping its mess into TRAI’s lap, hopes that if it can keep down the price of onions, voters will forgive the mess it created. TRAI, happily, doesn’t know what it’s got into. Meanwhile, National Highway Authority of India is busy trying to get Mr Vajpayee reelected, singlehandedly. In ads appearing on DD News and DD National, it extols the virtues of the Prime Minister’s dream project (never mind if individuals like Dubey have died along the way). The ads claim Vajpayee’s road show is pro-farmers, tourism, tourists, the middle class, business.. rather like Jaswant Singh’s latest round of sops. This is a clever pre-election media campaign: get public and private sector companies to advertise India Shining for you, before the code of conduct is enforced. Sonia Gandhi has also worked out a cost-free media campaign. It consists of meeting-greeting every single possible political leader for tea, coffee, birthday cake, Pongal, Sankranti, Lodhi so that she’s always a TV op. She should have been the star of Paisa Vasool. BBC could teach everyone about clever media strategies. On Hard Talk it got Jocelyn Hay, head of Voice of Listeners and Viewers, to defend BBC by attacking itself. So, the earnest anchor (not Timmy Sebastian) accused BBC of being a ‘‘dinosaur’’, ‘‘paternalistic’’, of spending huge amounts of public funds on ‘‘minority programming’’ while all the public wanted was to watch Rupert Murdoch’s Sky TV. And what of Iraq and a certain Dr Kelly, huh? Well, it apologised dinnit, replied the lady stoutly, it made ‘‘one mistake and quickly rectified it’’. Any way, BBC serves all the people, it makes the good popular, the popular good. public service TV zindabad. You might pun that BBC was making Hay while the sun shines. Then again, you might not. Lastly: TV characters may look human but they sound like animals. In Kehta Hai Dil Grusha Kapoor looks like a woman but she’s really a hissing snake; the mother in Kabhi Aiyee Na Judai is a meowing cat, while Komolika is a cross between the two. Don’t believe? Listen to te sound track. Finally, Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin lives up to its name, again. Watching Armaan-Sir in a fluffy, pink dress, all week, might have you exclaim, ‘‘What a drag’’ (!) but it was delightfully subversive. Jassi. may not be wowing the TRPs the way Komolika does but she’s allowing TV to flourish in the most unusual ways.
