The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Channels lack creativity

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Monday, Jun 15, 2009
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Channels lack creativity

Novel Content: Karuna in travelogue ‘Vihari’

Watch a Telugu channel and you would have seen all. So similar all happen to be that what you see on one is almost surely can be viewed on all others, albeit with a small changes such as a different anchor, set design and of course, title.

Take the afternoon slot. All of them have women stirring up cuisine and an anchor chatting away incessantly. Some ethnic looking backdrop and a fixed camera with some close-up shots of salt, pepper and chillies is all there to complement the chatter. But then, these shows have certain demand and that’s why we run them without looking beyond, happens to be the refrain from channels. But can’t certain difference at least in presentation be tried out?

Check any schedule and the same thing is on show. Crime stories with gory portrayals and talk unlimited are all over for viewers as they prepare to hit the bed and wake up, there are similarly packaged devotional content. And the easiest segment of the so-called entertainment programming is to piece together a few clips from the films and have a heavily made up beauty blurt out few sentences.

Move to the fiction and the same greets one. Hastily compiled tear-jerkers, half-baked social dramas, comedy that falls flat and hardly evokes a giggle and unwinding tales of lonely souls caught in travails designed by fate is what is there to entertain oneself.

Relief

Not that there are no exceptions, but they have been far and spread out. On Gemini, ‘Naana’ based on Malladi Venkatakrishna Murthy’s work did touch the hearts while shows such as ‘Little Champs’ on Zee and ‘Vihari’ on Maa came with certain distinctive packaging and did give a relief for viewers.

One wonders why the channels do not really look for more such content instead of sticking to run-of-the-mill shows on the pretext that they are just the ones that viewers yearn for.

T.Lalith Singh

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