On a reality check
SANGEETA BAROOAH PISHAROTY
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If there was one big craze that had viewers glued to their TV screens in 2005, it was surely the bug called reality shows.
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FUN, REALLY: Who will be the next `Indian Idol'?
Way back in 1993 when Zee TV started the first reality show, `Antakshari,' it was noticeably a different idea being tried on the small screen. And viewers lapped it up. TV entertainment, till then, was the job of actors, not by aam janta. Being a part of the razzmatazz gave not just the participants a great high, but viewers too were besieged by the feeling that they were part of the event .
Tell any fan of `Antakshari,' that we all helped to make a success of a reality show, the kinds rolling out on most entertainment channels these days, it seems almost a difficult thing to digest. Such is the taste of the first pleasures of life that you refuse to equal it with anything.
But that was surely an era long vanished. The age of appointment viewing has got a new meaning now. You have to add something new constantly lest you lose viewers any moment. In the melee of umpteen reality shows, particularly so in Y2K5, there is no time left to sit and stare if what is being dished out is not to your taste.
Flip channels and you might end up preferring one over the other. Such is the range of choice regarding reality shows on Indian entertainment channels that you even get a chance to compare now as to whether the first edition of a show is better than the second.
High TRPs
Backed by high TRPs, the reality talent hunt show `Indian Idol' (aired on Sony Entertainment Television from October 2004 to March 5), succeeded in hitting the advertisement revenues of `saas bahu' soaps beamed daily on Star Plus channel of Star TV. The Rs. 1,750-crore advertising revenue market for Hindi daily soaps has fallen by about five percent in the last few months.
Apart from the grand finale, on March when it was the second most watched show on television after Star Plus' `Kyunkii Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi,' the programme has been consistently achieving high TRPs since the first show was telecast.
`Indian Idol' garnered the maximum viewers in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Gujarat, Punjab, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
TAM figures reveal that 53 per cent of the total TV audience in North, West and East India watched the final episode of `Indian Idol.'
The show saw a consistent rise in the ratings from October onwards and therein managed to increase the share of Sony. 21.8 on 7 January to 53.7 on March 5.
Sony Entertainment television is happy about the response and is most likely to go in for a repeat of the programme.
With the success of `Indian Idol,' analysts say daily soaps may be losing their popularity as viewer fatigue has set in. The broad product categories that are advertised in daily soaps are FMCG, banking, automobiles, food & beverage, telecom and lifestyle.
On the day of the finale of the `Indian Idol' programme, TRPs of other entertainment also took a hit.
In the eight Saturdays preceding March 5, Hindi entertainment channels commanded a share of 71 per cent of the total channel pie while Hindi movie channels commanded 16 per cent, infotainment and English movie channels had two per cent each, kid's channels one per cent and news channels eight per cent of the total advertising pie.
On March 5, the day `Indian Idol' was telecast, Hindi entertainment channels' share went up to 85 per cent while Hindi movie channels share dipped from 16 per cent to seven per cent, the news channels' pie fell by three per cent and children's channels' viewership came down to zero from the one per cent the channels commanded on weekends.
The channels that lost the maximum viewers were entertainment channels (Star Plus), movie channels (Star Gold, Zee Cinema) and news channels (Aaj Tak, Star News, Zee News).
Now it remains to be seen if Sony can sustain these TRPs with the second coming of the `Indian Idol.'
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