Indian TV overview past present n future trends
Indian
television, in its prime, came along with so many variations that give us a
feel of innovation as well as solution criteria for Media management. No wonder
one can ever forget the famous doordarshan logo and its periodic multi-color
screen saver with a beep. Who can say what the designer thought of while making
the doordarshan logo?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1INrhYbIcMA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFoNiwZNcrg
Having
said that lets move on with the trend.
It would be idiotic to describe the difference in trends without showing
the specialty of each phase (past, present and future). He-man, Spider-man,
Dada Dadi ki kahaniya, lofted the interest of every child and growing teenager,
yeh jo hai zindagi, hum log, bajna for the youth, ramayan for oldies. Sunday
morning blossomed with Rangoli a descriptive music show to attract every ones
morning pleasure with a cup of tea which followed with epics (assuming all aged
views would be free) and than the famous Star-trek, bajna and a regional film
to facilitate regional audience. In short categorical program management had
begun at very first stage, the only difference it has in comparison to today's
world is "SOPHISTICATION".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTL8_oVMakw
Although
the saga of unlimited entertainment began in its very early stage, doordarshan
had so much of affect on its viewers that people often referred the channel as infotainment
rather than entertainment. The father of TV trends had everything in it,
starting from news till farming cultures along with the variation of
entertainment for all segment of viewers. The reason of its declining
popularity was lack of variation in innovating technology and modern viewership
appetites. Yes, that’s what happened when ZEE TV, the first Indian commercial
television channel got introduced. The marketing strategy for its shows was
completely different, it was the content of the shows itself, may it be the
first serial it came with "SAANP SEEDI" with "mohan kapoor"
as its host or "sa re ga ma" with anu kapur musical reality show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nRs1UR7Fao
That's
where it all began, with phase transition and popularity hungry investors of
the commercialized TV channels dramatization of reality shows continued
exploiting the facts. News became an episode to give people an observation of
the producer, rather than presenting the facts which were articulated rather
real. The difference in pixels between doordarshan's shows and commercialized
channels created a massive difference and added fuel to fire since viewers
always preferred a crystal-clear view rather than our old level bandwidth.
Advertisement
criteria changed too, although people liked early advertisements like washing
powder nirma, the opted to watch FEVICOL ka majboot jod, because the logical
presentation was more enjoyable. Advertisement Sponsorers slowly migrated to
private channels as number of viewers were more in these channels. Now you may
refer it as disaster or the variation but yes sophistication had replaced
simplicity. The shows were no longer informative in a simpler form although
some of them were genuine. I remember one of my relative often referred the
farmer's program to be very informative which was no longer shown in the commercial
channels. The famous UGC program of doordarshan which had nothing but science
at its best was no longer a part of my regular cup of infotainment (I remember
I understood the Archimedes principal and Newton’s Laws through that).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGJTRU6zAek
Not
to forget it added a lot of viewers!!!!!!
With
more Sophistication and varied shows yes one thing was clear, there has to be
competition, for example after certain time when lots of channels eased the new
buttons of our television remote set since the options made their use, I had
enormous amount of choice and same was the case of ad-generators. They had
various options. Same was the case for viewers, if they were bored of sa re ga
ma, they had boogie woogie to take their attention. In short the amount of
information was enormous; channels took full advantage of viewer’s confusion. in
spite of this they still got their epical drama through doordarshan's
mahabharat if not anything else.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RtqqG78K1s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05uPstPKz04
Sports
was another dimension at all, till START ESPN got introduced, indian sports
broadcasting was almost monopolized by doordarshan. Now the problem for all
these new channels was reachability. Earlier they started an easy way, having a
dish antenna at one place and getting the wired network to every home possible
so that broadcasting is easy. Yes we are referring to cable tv not the antenna
polarized on the roof of your house with a booster attached to it. Although
new, it had minor impact so people did not mind switching over and slowly it
was affective to almost every single home if not all.
News!!
It all began with ZEE news which only broadcasted news, followed by the famous
pranoy roys with NDTV and the so called "DHAMAKEDAAR" aaj tak. With news
not being a part of the entertainment channels people had more way to differentiate
what to watch and what not to. Same happened for sports, dependency for live
matches on doordarchan was over and ESPN and STAR SPORTS provided equal and
more entertainment for sports lovers, it became big money and even SET MAX
stepped into the arena with world cup broadcast. Although it was frustrating to
have Mandira bedi anchoring the show, the delusion of sports and glamour
started well enough. Now was the time for saturation, people spent some time to
decide which was their best seductive entertainment and hence although TV was
on for the whole day (now channels started broadcasting 24 hours), the common
wife MUMMA stocked for SAAS BHI KABHI BAHU THI, the DADY stacked for AKHBAAR,
the SUNNY waited to watch SPORTS WORLD and the DADDI waited for KRISHNA.
TV
was not a part of the house; it became the authentic substance for every member
of the family. As and when new products got introduced in the market advertising
agencies started adopting innovative ways to induce it in the consumer's
entertainment breaks. Things became so competitive that the involved movie
stars and eminent personalities in the ad campaign. It was big with Amitabh
Bachchan endorsing BPL. Followed by all other stars it started glittering more,
however creativity tickled everyone which is well cited by FEVICOL
advertisement where loads of people got attached to a poor bus citing the logic
of FEVICOLS adhering capacity. Well it had been a wonderful journey from the
starting from the doordarshan till today's entertainment systems. Weather the
logic behind Byomkesh Bakshi's crime investigation or the melodramatic CID, the
show with Simmy Grewal or Lift karade hosted by Karan Johar, may it be Sidhart
Basu's Quiz Time or Amitabh Bachchan's kaun banega Corepati, the idea remains
same but the way of presentation has differed and the impact of technology has done
the trick. Those who moved ahead with time are surviving and those who did not
remained dormant if not collapsed. The inducing technics have taken place of
source of options advertising techniques. Whatever it is its entertaining, infotaining,
encouraging and wonderful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvflVfl8ncY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sylxhxpx8eM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj3zIP8DDDk
Now
the Question, where will it go in future, who knows, because it also depends on
the technology exploitation? Its not only a producer's choice also a viewers
acceptance. May be today's MAHI's way would turn out to be tomorrows
sexodramatic presentation or today's rishta.com might turn out to episodes
which acts as a consulting bridge for email marriage. The television is
migrating towards westernized ideas preserving some time for old time serials.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrWtaoEZXQ8
Hope
I touched your nostalgic ends, hope I gave you a reason to smile realizing your
past. Hope I gave you the flow.
Thanks
for being with me so far with the
article.
