Here’s the news, brought to you by pan masala

‘‘My dear friend,’’ countered Moneybhai, ‘‘who actually advertises on the channels? I will pull out all the pan masalas from other channels and actually show the anchor chewing his favourite one before reading the news.’’

‘‘Stop at that,’’ I cautioned. ‘‘If you advertise the favourite underwear, it would be carrying things too far.’’

‘‘You do not know the kind of planning that I’ve done,’’ carried on Moneybhai. ‘‘I have offered the cablewallah several incentives and disincentives to make sure that rival channels are not telecast and finally I’ve ensured that my channel has the maximum reach.’’

‘‘How could you even think that you can take on the biggies?’’ I asked.

‘‘Within three months of the launch, I would have the highest number of television rating points. I would be the sabse tez super fast channel.’’

‘‘You would be spending lakhs on anchors,’’ I reasoned, ‘‘advertising the credibility of the channel by showing your anchors as highly credible faces that people can trust.’’

‘‘To be the sabse most watched channel you need an independent agency to tell you that you have the highest viewership,’’ claimed Moneybhai.

‘‘How many choppers are you hiring?’’ was my question.

‘‘The trick is to hit the TRP areas,’’ rationalised Moneybhai. ‘‘The areas where sample surveys are done. For instance a few households in Ghatkopar in Bombay, few houses in Rajouri Garden, Delhi. In all there are twenty thousand households who have to be targetted. We ensure that they watch only our channels twenty-four hours a day and this gets ‘registered’, giving us the maximum TRPs, and fetching us advertisements.’’

‘‘But even those twenty thousand require some content,’’ I suggested.

‘‘There is lot of scope in this content game,’’ argued Moneybhai. ‘‘One major channel is targeting twenty-five-year-olds. They believe that after a hard day’s work the twenty-five-year-olds would prefer to be glued to the idiot box instead of going out and meeting friends in pubs. Some believe that they would attract sixteen-year-olds and would stop them watching movies altogether. Others believe that four-year-old babies would be attracted to the tube thanks to their great colour combination.’’

‘‘What do you plan to do?’’ I asked at the risk of sounding incredulous.

‘‘I’ve already hired smart-looking Mandira Bedi lookalikes who will continue to keep smiling in front of the cameras no matter what happens,’’ explained Moneybhai. ‘‘Frankly I don’t know who really watches news. It’s all about the perception game. For instance if you have hundred people in four metros telling everyone to just watch Mandira Bedi on Set Max as she’s stunning, in all probability, most would forget that they were originally to watch a cricket match, and not a fashion channel.’’

‘‘But what would you do in times of war,’’ I countered. ‘‘Other channels have reporters who cover from outside, from inside, from above and below, and even embedded reporters.’’

He smiled. ‘‘You know Raju, my striped underwear reporters will be the news. Who’d be interested in watching the back of a tank when they can watch a mard in a kacha banyan reporting from the front!