TV without a K

Foremost, wanted, people of considerable imagination, a little audacity and not a little sagacity to take the TV set by the shoulders and shake it upside down.

Too much to ask? It could be. In the last year, television — entertainment or news — has been on a one-way highway; when it shifts gears it goes into reverse and stalls. And that’s where we are at the beginning of a new year: at a standstill.

Here’s a push for what we want in 2008.

In news we want fewer or none of the following: Actors. Actors at weddings, at leisure, celebrities at pleasure, everywhere but at film shoots. We don’t want a constant replay of Saif Ali Khan holding Kareena Kapoor’s hand, for the entire hour. That’s not news, it’s holding hands.

No song and dance either. Next to celebrities, they’re the longest running non-news item on Hindi news channels. The elimination of one marginally talented individual or couple takes up prime time space for their tear baths. Banish them to the soaps.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines news as “information about recent events or happenings.” By no stretch of the imagination can this include superstitions, the supernatural or the stars in our horoscope. Yet, the three categories are daily features on Hindi news. Channels like Aaj Tak go so far as to hold a Diwali puja on air at prime time. So when information about events and happenings during the day should be making news, it’s time for the aarti. If they must exist, transfer them to other worldly channels.

We want our cricket, the latest from Sydney, no matter how bad. We want to know what’s happening, not what Madan Lal, Sandeep Patil, Saba Karim, Kapil Dev, Ajay Jadeja, Atul Wassan, Chetan Sharma, Mohinder Amarnath, Ashok Malhotra, Kiran More (phew!) think what’s happening. Post match discussion, yes, non-stop analysis throughout the day? A no-no. During the India series, news channels become cricket channels and create a media madness, inciting rather than dousing passions. That’s not news, it’s not cricket and it sure isn’t nice.

Also, please, less noise, we’re not deaf. Tune down the volume in the voice box. Read slowly, speak slower so you can think quicker. Avoid pre-emptive strikes with pronouncements or announcements a second will reverse. Especially during elections — and we’re going to have plenty of them this year. Desist from questions which mean nothing or cannot be answered in a jiffy. You know: how does it feel to lose your entire family in a terrorist attack? What will happen to Pakistan now that Benazir is dead?

Above all, stop making news, report it. Find it. Send out search parties with newshounds who can sniff out stories we seldom see or hear about. Currently, the news veers between hard national, international news-terrorism-violence, elections, national disasters, 123, political scrimmages (BJP complained Congress said BSP attacked…) — and news softer than a baby’s belly (Is Ranbir cuter than Shahid?).

We want what lies between the two. And news from the countryside, as of now largely related to crimes, caste conflicts, ghosts or little children stuck in village wells. Surely, there’s more to us than that?

We want more documentary evidence of the state of the State not endless discussions with the same set of analysts: Begone Delhi’s intellectual properties, we need to pick more grey cells outside the capital’s brain trust. Is there no Pakistan expert outside Delhi’s IFS apartments?

Let’s break away from Breaking News Just In and Exclusive. Meaningless. Calm down, be reflective, unruffled even by momentous events. Sift through the chaos and bring a sense of logic and linearity so viewers understand what is happening and why. Remember, you’re in the newsroom, not the panic room.

The problem for entertainment is generic rather than particular. The daily soap has no idea how to break free of the K stranglehold. In 2000, when Kyunki, Kahani and Kasauti went on air with the Hindu undivided family, the K serial built its popularity on the core foundation of Indian cultural coding, ergo, Mahabharata, Ramayana… This was very different from the serials of the nineties — Saans was about marriage, infidelity, Zee’s Amanat about a widower and his daughters.

Since 2000, urban India has changed. It’s younger and young people don’t care about the joint family of the K serials. They’re part of nuclear two income families, with small or teenage children coping with urban minefields; they have an agenda that is apposite to those of our saas-bahus whose primary concern remains, yes, marriage. The days of K serials if not over, are numbered. Start counting.

TV entertainment channels do not cater to the me-gen-Next which is already diverted by other recreational activities — from sms to computers and internet, from DVDs, to ipods and of course, the mall crawl. The four or five day daily 23-minute soap fix has two handicaps for such an audience: soaps demand a faithful following which most viewers don’t have time for. They are repetitive, monotonous and offer little variety to an audience that is thirsting for new experiences.

Such an audience wants series with contemporary themes, dramas or comedies and at least one 50-minute episodic series (24, Boston Legal, CSI, Desperate Housewives, OC, Grey’s Anatomy, whatever) each night. Combine them with aspirational talent/reality programmes, chat shows (hey, where’s our Oprah?), and chances of a TV revival are far greater.

However, no one seems to be interested. The new entertainment channel, 9x, has gone middle class but thematically changed little. NDTV Imagine we have to wait and see, but the promos don’t offer much hope of change. There is a glimmer of something in serials like Sony’s new police drama,Tujhko Hai Salaam, and Star One’s serial on the air force, Chhoona Hai Aasmaan, or Sab’s Jersey No. 10. But these are the exceptions, not the trend.

Meanwhile, film has gone experimental and reaped rich rewards. Unless TV does the same it will become an urban myth rather than a diary of the times.

shailaja.bajpaiexpressindia.com