The Death of Indian Television
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TV is a bitch. It seriousy is. For anyone wanting to get into media, it’s the first choice. Firstly, because it offers easy money. And secondly, because there are so many idiots around that you get to make your mark easily. That is if you can inspire yourself enough to give the best in an atmosphere which has loads of sleaze and internal politics. Yes, it’s a big magnetic field. It does attract a lot of good talent but immense amount of junk too. For me, i always wanted to make movies and saw television as a stepping stone towards that. Extremely stupid. Now, this could hold true in the west where a lot of the content created for television is top notch. There is
loads of creativity. The crew works as a professional unit. Moreover, a lot of stuff still is shot on 16/35mm so graduating to films is not that tough. However back in india there is not one show you would like to be a part of your resume. All the four major so called GEC’s (general entertainment channels) look like clones of each other. Take out the logo and you won’t be able to differentiate what is what. Right from the scripts to the edits, camera, direction and acting stinks. And with that kind of work experience behind you, if you try approaching someone in the film industry, all you get to hear are some foul words.
You scan through the channels and wonder where does all the audience comes from. We are being bombarded with saas-bahu sagas and if that was not enough… hey there is a new cow in town. Reality shows… and it’s being milked to death. The search for India’s new singing sensation, the best stand up comedian, the greatest dancer. You name it and every channel has got not one but two versions of that. Things have reached a level where even the news channels carry excerpts of these shows. But hey that’s what sells. These shows get loads of sponsors. So who is to mind. Even MTV America which boasts of some great shows has indianised itself and most of the shows are crap. India’s best music channel according to TRP’s is 9xm and the best show on that. kutte ki meaow. God!!! how morose can one get. Yes there is a whole new wave sweeping through bollywood but would that ever happen on the indian television? I highly doubt that. I do however have big expectations from “Colors” because Viacom is involved in it.
3 years back i got into TV and i am still stuck. But oh no, i am better than the lot. Atleast that’s what i used to think. Coz i work in the news medium. On news features and life style shows. Until things started changing. My latest claim to fame. A half an hour show on the 62nd anniversary of bikini!!!! And when I look around and see what’s happening, I try to comfort myself. There are specials on every channel. Special on Rahul Gandhi having lunch at the home of a farmer in amethi. Specials on Rakhi Sawant starting a new talk show. Specials on UFO sightings. Specials on Vivek Oberoi making it up with Abhishek Bachchan. Sir, could i have a break please. No, not until you produce a special on Aamir Khan appearing on Salman’s das ka dum. Allright sir, I am gonna do that. (BTW isn’t it interesting how showbiz works?? Salman needs Aamir to get his show some good ratings. Aamir needs Salman for the promotion of his film. Everyone is using everyone else. Aamir btw is a strange kind of media whore. He won’t talk to journalists for ages and suddenly when his movie is about to release he is all over them. More on that later). The term “BREAKING NEWS” has acquired a new meaning. So a love triangle between three tigers and delhi police commisioner losing his dog is the latest breaking news !!!
See here, tigers in love
and here, delhi commisioner finds his dog
So where does this leave me?? Well, I have to literally sell my soul everyday to drag myself to work. Bit by bit. But i still have some left. TV pays good money and you have got to have balls to say no to that and follow your passion. Guess i just dont have them. Or maybe I am just waiting for the right opportunity. But the truth is that the longer you stay, the bigger that money gets. And then it becomes even tougher to say no. I still am on the path of building a descent bank balance so that i can self finance my project if I can’t raise enough funds. But i just hope i don’t get burnt till then. I just hope i still have my soul intact…..
I want movement and not a calm source of existence. I want excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love. I feel in myself a superabundance of energy which finds no outlet in my quiet life.
LEO TOLSTOY, “Family Happiness”
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
It’s strange that the golden age of Indian TV was in the days of single channel DD. Now, we have hundreds of channels and they’re all crap.
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True Navdeep. Who can forget the awesome shows like Tamas, Discovery of India, Buniyaad and Hum Log. Well scripted, well directed and great acting performances. Even epics like Ramayana, Chanakya and Mahabharata with no CGs and special effects on their side were superb. One can only hope that better sense prevails on the management that controls these crap churners.
Oh and I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on the great cinema that MSFU was…
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Strangely enough, the best channel on air is still government run: Lok Sabha TV.
I have caught diploma films, shorts and documentaries at odd hours. The quality of regular programming on this channel supercedes the programming offered by many private channels.
Animax is another one, though I don’t watch it too often. Some of the better anime series haven’t made it to India as yet, but what’s on offer is still decent.
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and someone please tell DD to have some business sense…
you cant get serials like Tamas, Discovery of India…on DVD..
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pankaj – hang in there buddy …everything will happen soon
make it happen
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@ 3, Abhijit – you are quite right. Lok Sabha TV actually has the most interesting content and play some really good award winning movies. The only reason, I can think of, is that it is headed by Bhaskar Ghosh who headed DD during mid to late 80s. He’s written a good book abt his DD days titled “Doordarshan Days” (Penguin) which is surprisingly candid account of his days as a bureaucrat. The most interesting parts are his constant battles with Ramanand Sagar since he thought the quality of the serial was pedestrian while the wily Sagar always used the minister to get better of him. Seemed like an episode of Yes Minister
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thank god “office office” is still there…9x is again showing “Chanakya” Imagine is showing “Alif Laila” & Vikram Vaital”….but the problem is that their TRPs are very low….still “saas bahu” rules…the serials we have watched like “humlog”, “buniyad”, mungeri laal ke haseenn sapne”, nukkad, “neem ka ped”, circus, malgudi days all has inspired from indian literature..teh difference betwn doordarshan era from todays is that today’s “tv crew” has no commection with indian literature…yesteryears even a sound recordist had an average knowledge of literature…Within the years as the middle class progressed with revision in pay scales they hooked with cable tvs and the taste changed forever..today nobody want to see those serials….so “jo bikta hai wo banta hai” that too in jet speed like shooting of 16 scenes in a day or writing the episode just before the shoot and doing post production just before it goes into the air….the grammar of writing has been restricted….the vocabulary has been limited..the shot taking has defined within a ltd blockings…the performances has been narrowed down..even bbetter artists has to give expressions with his/her eyes for example if the scene is about a son is coming from abroad..how a father will react to it….the “father” has been told that he should express the feeling with his eyes only coz they don’t have time which allows them a father to go and hug his son….so in this atmosphere it’s very tough to see something good in the tv….
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Samir Nair and Shailaja Kejriwal introduced star bestsellers which was an innovative step…zee also tried it with some rainbow programms but they just fell down as the parallel cinema lost in midway…Star bestseller should telecast again..I remember one of the episodes has the same story used in the movie “Ahista Ahista”
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I also remember Zee used to play telefilms called rishtey which were really good in the early cable television days.
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the film industry which will throw off your resume is itself dependent on hollywood remakes (without rights).. jannat and race are blockbusters.. so why abuse television alone.. for daily soap haters, watch sarabhai vs sarabhai on star one.. it will give you a break from hating present tv serials.
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guys, there is good news. DVD of “discovery of india-Bharat ek khoj” is out in market.
bTW, i usually see tom & jerry or firangi instead of all the breaking news and saas bahu sagas.
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http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=136681&catID=2&category=India
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shailesh..it costs around 20 thousand…Govt could easily bring down the price of the dvds..wht’s the logic in selling at such a higher price….b t w it’s available on youtube also…. episode sequences…teh words still echoes ” srishti se pehle satt nahi tha”
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thx Kartik. trying to do exactly that, BTW still have your movies. want me to courier them??
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@dipankar…ya even i remember dat episode about who signs marraige certificates for a living.star bestsellers was the best thing to happen to indian t.v for a long time.My fave was the Kaykay starrer “last train to mahakali”.also
“bhawron ne khilaaya phool”which had Irrfan khan directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia.I think even Anurag Kashyap directed a couple of stories..
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@pranay
“Last train to Mahakali” was directed by Anurag only and was one of his first films
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news anchoring at its best: Prannoy Roy on World this week
other notable anchors: Girish Karnad/Naseer on Turning Point
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Oh and some other shows of DD days that need a mention:
Malgudi Days, Byomkesh Bakshi, Vikram-Betal, Karamchand, Mr. Yogi, Udhan, Wagle ki Duniya… awesome stuff
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Even early cable tv was good……..I remember just mohabbat ,shriman shrimat and hum paanch……….nowadays it’s mostly espn ,discovery ,ngc and history channel for me ,star world sometimes…..lately also got hooked to ndtv imagine ,they are showing betaal pachisi……
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pankaj – will call u soon
BTW ..did u READ this ???
http://passionforcinema.com/4-boys-from-delhi/
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There is a large market for foreign sitcoms in India especially in the upper(matlab zyada paisa) Urban class segment …..but since none of them are broadcast live in India we have to be content with DVD’s and torrents ,I wonder why FOX ,CNBC and others don’t beam live in India….
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Story of my life. i felt as if i have written these words and i am reading it to myself.
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I stopped watching TV about 4 years ago. Even then it used to be mostly cricket and movies and sitcoms and (pardon me) WWE wrestling! Cricket and wrestling are a waste of time, and I can watch movies and sitcoms on the computer anyway. So though we happen to have two TVs at home, they’re both busted and we haven’t bothered to repair them.
BTW Pankaj, which are the channels/people interested in content other than saas-bahu and reality stuff?
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TV is a medium that is going through 2 different loops in the world. In the west TV has slowly but surely upstaged Films. Yes, the US has lots of reality shows but then there is some awesome content being developed for TV there. Some of the shows that come there and also on Star World here are absolutely phenomenal. The easiest response to that is budget and all that technical crap but the real problem is not TV or what it is putting out..Its the sad mentality of the current Indian population
The earlier generation of the 70’s & 80’s were on an exploratory search and were way more advanced that this new internet cell phone generation who do not know their arse from their elbow. So we have had a regression in our new generation. That’s one of the reasons for the downfall of TV.
Ekta makes those Saas Bahu serials because somebody is watching it and watching it for a long time. She is quite arrogant when she claims that the people who crib about her serials are not the people who watch it but that is the most truest statement. There is a huge dumbed down India that has been sucked into this warped world of new TV and want to remain there.
Till these zombies are brought out of their stupor will TV not make a change.
I do not blame the producers as this is no longer a creative world but just another supply chain industry and till there is demand, there will be supply.
Pankaj, I sense despondency in your tone. Buddy fret not, if you can keep your mind away from all this and still work at making it creative then you have it going. Do not get bogged down. I say this because I too get bogged down many a time looking at my day job but its a journey. If you are a drinking kind, a Good Whisky & Soda helps :-)
As Mark Twain said, never let school interfere with your education, I keep changing school to work and other negatives as I keep growing
Cheers, Deepak
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I read some where that TV directors could make a good film maker. I wonder how, coz the skill sets are 180 degrees apart. On TV where you should be skilled enough to make a 200 episode show out of a short story (sometimes even without that), how could one handle a 120 page script. He would take his whole life time to reach the climax. Some poor producer has already roped in a saas bahu soap director to make a film. My best wishes are with him (the producer).
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@Rony… we should meet and drown our sorrows over some good scotch. haha
@Vineet… I myself have wondered about this quite a few times since both Fox (in the form of Star) and CNBC have stakes in the Indian media
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@Kenny… As Subrat and Abhijit said DD for one is a channel that’s not churning content blindly and the solitary reason is that being govt. owned, it’s not in the race to mint money.
@ Gajendra… don’t agree with you at all. In India, Anurag Basu is the best example to have made that transition. In the West examples galore.
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Kartik.. yes I did read the post and am very much a part of the project.. BTW u comin’ to Osian this year??
@Deepak… interesting comment
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Pankaj… I commented on the Indian scene. Of course things are very different in the west. Anurag Basu of course is an exception. But his work on TV reflected his creativity and was not the kind we see today. But I wonder, how cud one supress his creative fire (if he really has it) by directing a dull soap for long. Could Money and more money as u said, stop someone for long.
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Gajendra, you are right. Money can’t really supress you for too long. I have seen that happen around me. Eventually you get so frustrated that you just quit without having anything in hand or do something which pays you less but atleast offers creative satisfaction. Also, a lot of people realise that they are just not cut out for the shit and do an MBA and enter the managerial world.
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Caught the first episode of Ekta Kapoor’s “Mahabharata” which launched yesterday. Marks a new low for Balaji Telefilms. The dialogues are as corny as they come and it’s shot very amateurishly. Someone has got to tell her that just because you start using jibs in your shows doesn’t make them any better. And how could one use crash zooms and slow mos so extensively here. Utter nonsense. Moreover her strategy of opening the show with the famous “Vastra Haran” scene has backfired. As has the one of not revealing the faces of Pandavas and Krishna.
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One of the best posts i ever read!
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@pankaj#28
which films are you going to watch at Osians mate, recommend any?
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Each and every serial that was shown on DD was of a class. After the cables came in I can recollect only two serials that were worth watching till they ended, Ashirwaad and Astitva…. Ek Prem Kahani. I have to still get hooked onto a serial once these two got over and I dont find anyone of them as gripping as these two were.
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