Idiot Box Idiosyncracies

Following the trend is a common thing in Indian news TV and all one has to do is catch the fancy of the viewers one evening for an hour with something ‘out of the box’ (at times the phrase is applied after the success of the particular idea) and the trend is set.

One such trend these days is to remind or give the viewers another opportunity to catch up on what happened in popular TV shows. It must have started as a weekly dosage but quickly became an overdose. Thus, for the last few weeks, Indian news TV viewers were tired of watching what happened in Big Boss, the Indian version of Big Brother almost everyday.

Come to think of it, what’s the idea behind showing what happened in a reality show or a soap opera last evening! Particularly, when it was telecast in the same country! A weekly rewind of all that happened in TV all of last week sounds novel but watching what happened in other TV shows on news TV on a daily basis becomes pointless after a while.

But the trend will continue till another one takes over. Thankfully, we have seen the end of Big Boss for the time being.

Things changed in a whirlwind in Indian news TV. Even before one could wake up to the reality of 24 hour news, it was segmented and dedicated sports, entertainment and business bulletins were in place. Earlier, entertainment news bulletins were the entertainment channels’ business and sports news always found space in the last few minutes and headlines of a bulletin. Unless something really big had happened, neither sports nor entertainment stories were preferred as the lead story. And now, who was declared winner in Big Boss could be the lead story in a general news bulletin depending on what else had happened by the time the bulletin was telecast. Needless to say, the entertainment bulletin will have more than one Big Boss stories that day.

Do we, viewers, actually prefer watching what happened in the TV shows that we anyway are so passionate about in news bulletins? Tricky question and one should never risk answering on others’ behalf. But one thing is for sure. The news channels are getting their TRP. Otherwise, the trend would have never been set.