MxMIndia

Category: SHAILESH KAPOOR

  • In all the hype around OTT shows over the last year or two, Delhi Crime will stand out as a genuine achievement, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Shailesh Kapoor: Delhi Crime: Investigative, Insightful & Incisive

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    The OTT content market is buzzing with excitement. Every time we think the traffic of new shows will ease up, there is more, and then more, that comes our way. The last month has been particularly fertile, with a series of launches across all major and minor platforms. And there’s one amongst them that stands tall: Delhi Crime.

    Netflix’s Delhi Crime, based on the police investigation following the ‘Nirbhaya’ gangrape case, has been created and directed by Richie Mehta, a Canadian of Indian origin. The production and technical crew are dominated by foreigners, and hence, the show cannot be called entirely homegrown. But it’s based in India, on an Indian story, and has an eminent Indian cast, and the primary language is Hindi. And it’s truly Indian in its spirit, tonality and texture.

    Delhi Crime rivets you with the police perspective of the much-discussed gangrape case from 2012. We saw various accounts unfold in the news media when the incident happened. A large part of the focus, and rightly so, was on the victim’s story. The girl became the ‘face’ of a women’s safety campaign that followed, creating social awareness, and eventually leading to amendments in rape laws.

    What we have not been exposed to thus far is the police’s point-of-view. TV show Crime Patrol touched upon this, covering the case in a two-part special that broke all rating records for the show in 2013. Delhi Crime dwells into this fascinating world, through the eyes of its protagonist DCP Vartika Chaturvedi, played to perfection by the much-underrated Shefali Shah. What unfolds is a thrilling quest to nab the victims in a real-time pressure cooker scenario, with the media and the political class breathing down the police’s neck.

    Like Meghna Gulzar’s Talvar (2015), where the narrative sided with the parents, Delhi Crime too decides to take a firm position. Its point-of-view is pro-police in no uncertain terms. After watching Delhi Crime, I revisited some of the news material on the case on YouTube. An interview with the victim’s male friend, where Zee News celebrated him as a hero of the nation, particularly stood out as being in sharp contrast to the narrative in Delhi Crime, which paints him as an opportunist, trying to garner media attention through the case. It’s this taking-a-stand approach that makes Delhi Crime even more interesting, and prevents it from being a sterile account at any point of time at all.

    While there is a lot to appreciate about the show, two aspects stood out in particular for me. The first is about the non-filming of the actual incident itself. While every detail of the case is carefully covered in the investigation, and the audience always has an insightful, insider’s view to what happened, the actual incident is never shown, not even suggested. Surely, this would have a conscious decision. And quite a brave one too.

    The second aspect is about the use of humour in the show. Mehta and her writing team infuses the show with characteristic Delhi humour, using situations and lines to evoke a smile, a chuckle, and sometimes even a laugh, in a show that Netflix classifies as “gritty” and “dark”. Amazingly, at no instance does this come across as insensitive. The humour blends into the purposefully grim narrative, and even adds to it, providing deliciously incisive commentary of the workings of Government officials at large in Delhi.

    In all the hype around OTT shows over the last year or two, Delhi Crime will stand out as a genuine achievement. The under-marketed show may take several weeks and months to find its true reach. But it’s arguably the best online show to have come of India till date.

  • The media coverage of General Elections 2019 has been nothing remarkable, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Bees Din Baad: May 23 Beckons

     

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    Twenty days from today, the grand election event will come to an end (though many believe the days that follow May 23 will be highly dramatic). Over the last two months, the General Elections have owned the mindspace of people at large. “Will Modi come back?” is 2019’s why-did-Katappa-kill-Bahubali type of question.

    The media coverage of these elections has been nothing remarkable, to put it mildly. These elections lack a big idea like the previous one, where anti-incumbency and the projection of Narendra Modi as the face of a new India created a narrative laced with optimism and joy. Even the BJP campaign this time doesn’t have the punch of simple but memorable phrases like Achhe Din, Ghar Ghar Modi, etc.

    In the absence of an inherently strong narrative, the media has struggled to find a peg on which to cover these elections. Hence, what we have got is a series of individual stories, which lack a larger missing thread. The only somewhat constant idea in some of these is the alleged toothless-ness of the Election Commission, but that too has been covered only by select sections of television, print and online media.

    The absence of creativity and imagination is also apparent. Are there any marquee election shows that have stood out as first-of-their-kind? Is there one programming idea that can genuinely be called “new”? Far from it. There have been the usual debates (and more debates) and the usual coverage from the ground. Politicians give fodder and media debates and dissects it. That’s been the default position.

    One particular irritant that stands out is the absence of comedy and light-heartedness in the coverage of these elections. Political satire has traditionally been a popular genre of content. But over the years, it has faded away in India, perhaps because everyone is too sensitive and in a perpetual apology-seeking mode nowadays. Barring an odd OTT show, there are no proper attempts to do stand-up or sketch comedies around the elections.

    This collective bankruptcy of ideas, which all major media houses are guilty of, is baffling and saddening, both at the same time. It cannot be that we have slowly lost the ability to think creatively as an industry. It surely has to do more with the brief itself. It seems that “curb creativity, go after the tried and tested” is the operating mantra across the board today.

    The good thing with elections, like sport, is that it provides adequate drama and entertainment on its own. As a viewer, you will still find that one ridiculous quote, that one goof-up, that one shoe-hurl or black ink and that one pants-dropping moment that would make you chuckle, sometimes cynically.

    But the mediocrity of coverage is too apparent if one goes beyond the bizarre and the dramatic. Come May 23, I predict exactly the same panels, the same graphics and the same studio set-ups as all the major elections since 2014. And if I knew who was winning, I’d have even predicted the headlines!

     

  • Can anything Indian, on TV or in films, match up to this level of craze anytime soon, asks Shailesh Kapoor

    Avengers: The Marvelous India Story

    An Amul ad capturing the popularity of the latest Avengers release

     

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    Two weekends ago, Avengers: Endgame released in India as easily the most-anticipated Hollywood film ever. At a staggering 52 Cr+ business on the first day (net of GST), the film beat the record of the previous film in the franchise (Avengers: Infinity War) by a wide 60% margin. Not only that, it beat the biggest Hindi opener till date too, surpassing the opening-day collections of Thugs Of Hindostan, without having the benefit of a huge nationwide holiday like the Aamir Khan film.

     

    Avengers: Endgame is on course to do 375-400 Cr business in India, which will beat the lifetime box office record held by Avengers: Infinity War by about 150 Cr. Normally, such records are broken after a gap of a few years, because ticket rates go up and new multiplexes open up, giving films a wider number to achieve on the same demand. But that’s not the case in the Avengers example. The market scenario is largely similar to last year, barring a reduction in GST on movie tickets. A steep 150-Cr growth in just 12 months clearly highlights the growing equity and stature of brand Marvel in India.

     

    If one was to do a list of the most powerful media brands in India, there’s very high chance that Marvel will top it. In a country where the language barrier itself limits the reach of International content, how the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has managed to penetrate itself, through not just metros or mini-metros but the smallest of towns, is a testimony of what genuine movie craze can be. The language accessibility helps, and the dubbed versions have contributed more than 40% of the box office of Avengers: Endgame. But even with that, the mainstream, mass status MCU has acquired in India, one film after the other, is an achievement to marvel at.

     

    This genuine movie craze is about a deep and organic connect built with the characters in MCU. There are films like Thugs Of Hindostan, and the various Salman Khan films, where the lead star has massive appeal, and if you prop up the promotions leading up to the release, you build the requisite “hype” and the film opens well, and thereafter, the content takes over to decide how long its legs are.

     

    But there’s a difference between “hype” and “craze”. MCU films, especially the bigger ones, are success stories based on craze, not hype. As was Bahubali 2. But almost every other film that’s big-ticket is a hype product. Hype doesn’t lead to genuine craze. It propels audience to visit the theatre, often because it’s the in-thing to do, and one doesn’t want to miss out on riding the hype wave. It’s an inorganic, marketing-driven way of getting a film to open well. More like a consumer push.

     

    But when there’s genuine craze, the hype builds organically on its own. Avengers: Endgame was being marketed by crazy fans in digital media and the real, offline world. The much-written about late night and early morning shows on the opening day could have been a marketing ploy by another film, but in this case, it was a certification of the craze that existed. A consumer pull that’s so strong that the film belongs to its audience even before they have seen it.

     

    We are in a push marketing era in general. Bombarded with messaging across online and traditional media, consumption of content and brands is often a function of one brand outshouting the other. In such a marketing climate, Avengers: Endgame is a rare exception that stands out. Can anything Indian, on TV or in films, match up to this level of craze anytime soon?

     

     

  • A late surge by one of the weaker teams, and this World Cup could suddenly light up, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Cricket World Cup So Far: Still Waiting to Launch?

     

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    It’s three weeks since the ICC Cricket World Cup started in England. 22 days and 26 matches later, the excitement is still waiting to build up. A multitude of factors have ensured that this probably the least exciting Cricket World Cup in a long time, from a cricketing perspective.

     

    From a marketing and media perspective though, there are no such concerns. India matches have rated very well, and the India-Pakistan ratings, which will come in next week, are likely to hit the roof anyway. Brands have piggybacked on the once-in-four-years tournament well, and the match timings are highly conducive to India, making the Cricket World Cup a highly lucrative media event.

     

    But all of the above is an India story, and an off-field story too. On field, the tournament has struggled. Four of the 26 matches have been rained off so far. Thankfully, the rains have relented over the last one week, preventing this World Cup from becoming a farce purely on grounds of poor weather.

     

    But even as the rains relent, cricket fans wait for exciting games. Only 3-4 games have reached a point where the winner is not evident with 10 overs to go in the second innings. It seems only five teams have really turned up, prepared to play hard. Four of these – Australia, England, India and New Zealand – are near certain to be the four semi-finalists, while the fifth – Bangladesh – has put up better fights than more seasoned teams like South Africa, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and West Indies.

     

    It’s a format tailormade to enable tight scenarios on the points table, where one can be waiting till the last few games to know the final composition of the semi-finalists. It happens in IPL every year, and happened in the 1992 World Cup too, when this format was last used. Pakistan, the eventual winners, had to win virtually everything in the second half of the league stage to qualify. And they did!

     

    But so far, chances of any such drama happening in the last one week look very remote. It seems that the next two weeks will only decide who plays whom among the four near-certain semi-finalists. And that is sure to rob the World Cup further of excitement.

     

    Now, a lot of this is not in ICC’s control. You cannot worry about South Africa looking sub-par and not being able to win more often, for example. But much as ICC can’t control it, there is enough and more for them to reflect upon. Attendances at the Asia matches have been very good, with Indians and Bangladeshis in particular packing the stadia. But this sub-continental colour that cricket is acquiring surely cannot be healthy. I was in the UK for the first 10 days of the World Cup, and there was no buzz or talk about the tournament at all. The local newspapers dedicated 2-3 full pages to football, vis-à-vis half a page to an England game in the Cricket World Cup. You could drive around the city of London for 2-3 hours and stare pointedly at every hoarding, and yet, not know that there’s a big cricket event going on here.

     

    Cricket has faced the globalization challenge for years now. While Afghanistan and Bangladesh have come in stronger over the last few years, there hasn’t been much progress in the rest of the world. 50% of the teams in the World Cup are from the sub-continent. Surely, this cannot be a right step in the direction of globalization. Something for ICC to worry about deeply.

     

    It’s perhaps also an issue with the 50-over format itself. Eight hours of viewing is not a premise on which you can grow a sport in today’s age. Perhaps T20 needs to take the centerstage after all, and Test cricket can be the variant for the connoisseurs. ODIs seem to have a questionable future at this point of time. But these are difficult calls, and the playing nations will be understandably reluctant.

     

    We may still see a late surge by one of the weaker teams, and this World Cup could suddenly light up. And eventually, in the last one week, it will be about what India’s final outcome is. That’s the beauty of sport and the passion it evokes.

     

     

  • The message is clear, writes Shailesh Kapoor. If carries a certain level of appeal and viewer pull, India can be fairly homogenous.

    India-Pakistan Ratings: Busting the Fragmentation Myth

    The Amul ad on the India-Pakistan World Cup match

     

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    The ratings for the India-Pakistan World Cup cricket match on June 16 are out. The hopelessly-one-sided game scored a whopping 18+ TVR (Urban All India). Ratings nearing 20 can only evoke nostalgia for those following the Indian TV market over the years. It’s in the first half of the decade of 2000s that one would see such numbers for daily shows, with Kyunkii… and Kahaani… leading the way for a while. Thereafter, the numbers progressively dropped, a trend that’s generally believed to be an outcome of the launch of more channels and the resultant fragmentation of content choices available.

     

    The top Hindi GEC show moved from the 20-mark in early 2000s to the 10-mark late in that decade. In the first half of the decade starting 2010, the 5-6 level was aspiring enough. Today, even a 3-level is gold.

     

    Movie ratings have also shown a downward trend, but nowhere close to soaps. The top movie could do 15+ rating about 15 years ago, the equivalent of which is a 7-8 rating today. That’s a 50-60% drop, vis-à-vis an 80%+ more drop when you compare the top Hindi GEC shows across the same two periods.

     

    The popular belief has been that with the expansion of the measurement universe over the years, the true heterogeneity of the Indian market has a more and more significant impact on the TV ratings. That, combined with a multiplication in the number of channel options, would mean that fragmentation, and the resultant creation of a long tail, is inevitable.

     

    The India-Pakistan match ratings challenge this notion head on. The message from the audience is clear: If there’s content that carries a certain level of appeal and viewer pull, India can be fairly homogenous after all. Yes, there are more options and more diversity in the universe today. But there’s always content that cuts through, because it enjoys that broad-based appeal. And hence, justifying sub-3 numbers as the best-case scenario is only a self-fulfilling prophecy, whereby content creators and broadcasters are justifying low ratings as a market behaviour, than questioning them as symptoms of a loss in the collective ability of the industry to make truly mass, pan-India shows.

     

    One may argue that big-ticket sporting events have the ability that genres like drama, comedy and non-scripted content lack. That’s a fair argument too. But one is not expecting the top show to deliver 18-rating. Even the inert and one-sided India-South Africa match touched the 6-mark (averaged over more than seven hours, no less!). That’s surely a level a top Hindi GEC show should aspire to achieve. But today, even half of that is being celebrated as an outright success.

     

    If these signs continue, we may soon be a television market where sports, news and movies become the staple, and drama the alternative. It has already started happening during events like the IPL, the elections and now the World Cup. It could be a matter of time when more routine days begin to exhibit this trend too.

     

    If all the content creators can take a week’s break from their OTT pre-occupation and think about this, I’m sure they have the collective ability to come up with something worthy. The real question is: Do they have the will? Or has television already been reduced to a fuddy-duddy medium that’s not even cool to ideate about?

     

     

  • While the end of India’s World Cup dream meant a heartbreak for many, we’ve seen a very mature media and fan response, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    The Silver Lining to India’s World Cup Exit

    The Amul topical ad after the Indian team’s loss in the semi-finals of the Men’s World Cup Cricket 2019

     

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    This week has been headlined by India’s semi-final exit from the 2019 Cricket World Cup. In a semi-final played over two days, league-stage toppers India went out to New Zealand, albeit after giving a tough fight in a run chase that had gone all wrong within minutes of it starting. While the end of India’s World Cup dream has meant heartbreak for many fans, it has easily been the most mature media and fan response one has seen to India’s elimination from a World Cup in years.

     

    Take 2015, for example. India lost to Australia in a fairly one-sided semi-final, falling 95 short of a big run chase. Having stayed unbeaten in the group stage, it was India’s first defeat in the tournament, but it was enough to send them home. Many would remember Arnab Goswami’s “Shame In Sydney” coverage from that night, and the social media backlash it received. But he was not the only one. Several news channels, across languages, did not take too kindly to the defeat. India had been simply outplayed by the host nation on the given day, but that this can happen in sport was not important for the electronic media to understand. They played to, what they thought is, the sentiment of the fans. Except that social media now allows you to gauge the fan sentiment in real time. And the social media verdict was clear: There was no shame in losing to the better team on the day after playing a great World Cup for more than a month. While the print media too was mature and restrained the next morning, the TV coverage was the old-school, of the ‘Match Ke Mujrim’ variety.

     

    This week, even the electronic media has fallen in line. Perhaps it’s the late surge from Jadeja and Dhoni, who took India within striking distance, that played a role in how the story was played out. If India had folded up for less than 150, a very likely option at one stage, the daggers may have come out in more numbers. But on Wednesday, the few, like ABP News, who presented India’s exit story as a “failure” were firmly rebuked by big numbers on social media.

     

    I find this evolution of the Indian fan fascinating. We are not a sporting nation by culture, and understanding defeat in big-ticket sport doesn’t come intuitively to us. But somehow, over the last five years, there has been a sobering down of reactions after losses in key matches. Perhaps it’s a function of us winning more often than not these days. But there’s also little doubt that sobering and influencing voices on social media that have been able to influence how fans think about and approach the game.

     

    As a follower of cricket over the years, if you have seen the agony of 2007, you have seen it all. India’s early (first week) exit that year was torturous, to put it mildly. It brought out the worst in fans and the media. But the performance was so lacklustre that even the most moderate voices found it difficult to appeal for restraint. It took an unlikely World T20 win later that year for that ghost to be buried. Though for many like me, that one week featuring losses to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka will remain the worst week in Indian cricket for a lifetime.

     

    We have come a long way since then, both on and off the field. There has been ample dignity at display this week. And that’s a wonderful sign for the future.

     

     

  • Shailesh Kapoor kicks off a series focusing on OTT with a look at the impact of the new platform on cinema-going

    The Big OTT Growth Story – Chapter 1

     

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    The rise of OTT/ digital consumption in India is a narrative that has dominated media discourse over the last year or two. The sheer volume of launches from the top players is reason enough for it to be a hot topic of discussion. The creative muscle backing many of these shows, especially those from Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and Hotstar, makes the OTT story even more persuasive.

     

    There’s an element of scepticism about how, and to what extent, is the OTT content delivering, both in terms of eyeballs and revenues. Absence of a unified currency means that there are no numbers in the public domain. Individual platforms may release specific data, such as Hotstar talking about the growth of IPL on the digital platform year-on-year. But the larger picture is incomplete, because a central data source is missing.

     

    This has been a topic of great interest for us at Ormax, and a lot of work has been happening in the background over the last year in this area. Over the next few weeks, you can expect to read more on this aspect here, in this column.

     

    A few weeks ago, we got one of the first definitive evidences on the OTT impact on media consumption in India. In the 2019 update of The Ormax Bollywood Audience Report (TOBAR), which sizes and profiles the Hindi moviegoers’ universe, the market size of regular theatregoers (defined as those who watched three or more Hindi films in a theatre in the previous calendar year) fell by 8%, from 3.61 Cr to 3.33 Cr. This itself is not much of a story, especially because this drop coincided with a higher incidence rate, i.e., while less people may have gone to theatres, they went more often, leading to higher box office in 2018 than in 2017.

     

    However, if we see the age break-up of the Hindi moviegoers’ universe over these two years, there’s a striking pattern. The table below shows this break-up:

     

    The drop in the universe size shows a clear negative correlation to age. From a 20% drop in the teenage segment to a 13% drop in the college youth, it becomes a mere 3% in 25-34 yrs. And then, there is actually an increase in the 35+ segment. In effect, the 15-24 yrs. segment lost 27 lac audiences within a year, but the 25-44 yrs. segment lost only 1 lac audiences.

     

    It is not very difficult to attribute this trend to the ascendancy of digital content in India over the corresponding period of time. The youth have been the early adopters of original OTT content, and a section of them have moved away from theatrical consumption of Hindi film content as a result. A parallel rise in Hollywood’s popularity in India adds a layer of complexity to this argument, but that’s another story for another day.

     

    While this may be a compelling concern for the theatrical business, it is also a validation of the OTT growth story. And the OTT growth story may have only just begun. The 25-34 yrs. age group could be next on the line.

     

    What’s the likely impact on TV in the coming years? Watch this space!

     

     

  • In times when anniversaries of eminently forgettable films are celebrated on social media with great fanfare, the 25th anniv of Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! deserves a genuine shout out, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Shailesh Kapoor: HAHK: 25 Years… And A Legacy That Will Last Forever

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    Earlier this week, one of Hindi cinema’s most iconic films, Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! (HAHK), completed 25 years. In times when anniversaries of eminently forgettable films are celebrated on social media with great fanfare, this one deserves a genuine shout out.

    Rajshri’s 1994 film was a remake of their very own Nadiya Ke Paar (1982), which in turn was an interpretation of Keshav Prasad Mishra’s Hindi novel Kohbar Ki Shart, though the novel has a wider story than the two films. Remaking Nadiya Ke Paar in the 90s would need some courage. The idea of the original film is grounded in Indian culture and family values, which were not in vogue in the cinema of the early 90s, though Sooraj Barjatya, the director of HAHK, himself had brought Indian values to the fore in his debut film Maine Pyar Kiya (1989).

    But more than that, the humble rural setting of Nadiya Ke Paar was too un-cinematic for the 90s, when overseas business was a crucial component of box office, and even the Indian audience was looking for escape and aspiration through their cinema. How Barjatya visualised the adaptation is a story that’s still not been told much, perhaps because the original film is not very well known (though interestingly, it rates higher on IMDb than HAHK). But what he managed can only be called the work of a true genius.

    Much of HAHK’s imagery is about its 14 songs and the wedding functions. I remember The Times Of India review at the time of the film’s release being headlined something like ‘A bag of frills’. The film, of course, is a lot more than that. At the heart of it, it has one of the most well-etched, though somewhat simplistic, love story. But more than anything else, it’s a textbook chapter on the perfect modern Indian joint family, a mythical idea that many would want to be a part of, but is too good to be true, and largely out of reach.

    When one speaks about classics, one typically has 5-6 big scenes that stand out. That’s not the case with HAHK. It’s a seamless 220-minutes (in its original form before some songs were edited) line-up of sequences that are individually compelling, but not shouting for attention outside the context of the film. In the end, the whole is much bigger than the sum of the parts here, and it’s a fairly wholesome one too.

    Boxofficeindia.com projects the inflation-adjusted domestic nett revenue of HAHK at Rs. 711 Cr. That would make it bigger than everything Hindi cinema has churned out, including the dubbed Hindi version of Bahubali 2. But HAHK’s memories are not about the numbers. They are about the impact it had in the mid-90s. It was a time when theatres were shutting down and theatre-going was going out of vogue. The film, which the makers audaciously released in only 35 screens in its first week, “found” its audience, not over a week or a month, but over more than a year.

    I remember how only two theatres in Delhi (Sapna and Satyam, if memory serves me right) ran the film in the initial 2-3 weeks. In days of no Internet, getting a ticket did not come easy. It meant making a trip a few days earlier to stand in the advance booking queue. I did it more than a few times, as there was enough in the film to demand a second viewing, and then one more, and then some more.

    By the time it was Diwali, the film had found audiences in the most unlikely sections of the society. Families that had never visited a theatre were going in big groups of 15-20, all decked up for an experience of their life.

    The film then had a long and immensely successful television run, which is still going strong. Many believe the film has not aged as well as DDLJ, which came a year later. But for me, HAHK doesn’t need to go through the ageing test. It’s rooted in 1994, and that’s from where it should be seen.

    May its legacy live on!

     

  • The episode, by all means, can be termed as a huge marketing success, even though the content was a letdown, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Shailesh Kapoor: Man Vs. No Wild: Great Marketing, Bizarre Content

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    Calling it a coup will not be an overstatement. The Discovery Channel, known widely in India for its flagship adventure show Man vs. Wild, managed to put together a special episode with PM Narendra Modi. The episode, telecast Monday (Aug 12) in India, had the show’s anchor, the inimitable Bear Grylls, taking Modi on a walk-and-raft trip through the Jim Corbett National Park.

    It is easy to guess that the marketing-savvy Modi would have seen this as an unusual method to connect with the country, and would have seen the opportunity of getting a platform to express his thoughts on environment and its conservation. That Barack Obama, among other fancied celebrities, has featured on the show, would have given Modi enough reassurance to take the plunge.

    The show was heavily promoted by Discovery. And by the weekend leading up to its telecast, the episode had got a life of its own, driving social media conversations and responses.

    The actual episode itself, though, was a damp squib. I wasn’t expecting Modi to go the Grylls way by experimenting with food, given the former’s vegetarian food choices. But the 40-minutes long journey through the Himalayan forests (Grylls repeatedly reminded us how dangerous they could be) was an exercise in inertness. Walking through the wilds, with your “secret service” shadowing you, may be mildly adventurous, but it certainly doesn’t pass the Man vs. Wild quality test.

    A large chunk of the show was about Modi’s ‘Mann Ki Baat’ with Grylls, where the Prime Minister was quizzed on his childhood, his tryst with the Himalayas, his love for the nature, his parents and other such personal topics. We have heard some of this before, and some was new. But this is no Rendezvous With Simi Garewal, and the lengthy chat-ups seemed like fillers, covering up for the evident lack of actual adventure.

    But what really irked me no ends was the language in which these chat-ups happened. Modi spoke 80% Hindi, and Grylls, evidently not familiar at all with the language, had little to contribute by the way of an actual conversation. He put up a brave act, smiling and nodding in generic but appropriate ways, ensuring that the audience felt he was comprehending the incomprehensible. I was looking for a translator lurking in the background, but no, there was none. On a couple of occasions, Grylls could actually pick up some English words or hand gestures used by Modi, to respond in slightly more specific terms.

    I can’t get over the ridiculousness of the linguistic dysfunctionality of the episode. It’s like watching an interview show where the host cannot understand what the guest is saying. And yet, the host has to pull the show through, based on his common sense and experience. If Modi was reluctant to speak at length in English, an off-camera translator should have surely been a possible way to fix this bizarre communication method.

    The raft journey towards the end was arguably the most adventurous part of the show, more because Grylls had to wade his way through the water, and could use the word “balls” in front of Modi, and even get the PM to laugh at it. But it was a case of too-little, too-late.

    What will this special episode do to The Discovery Channel? It may get the brand strong recognition, leading to acquisition of some new viewers. We would get a sense of that through the ratings over the next few weeks. The episode, by all means, can be termed as a huge marketing success, even though the content was a letdown from the get go.

    PS: I think I should soon write about five Indian TV shows that Modi should feature as a guest on.

     

     

  • Kaun Banega Crorepati provides a certain comfort with the familiar, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Ageless Wonder

     

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    It’s that time of the year again. India’s most iconic television show Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) is back again, this time with its 11th season. The first four episodes have set the tone for a 13-week entertaining and engaging ride. The story has been no different, after all, over the last few seasons.

    Ninety minutes a day for five days a week is quite some commitment to content. Yet, a sizeable section of the Indian audience makes this commitment year-on-year. Not to mention the various regional versions that have done immensely well over the last decade.

    ‘What keeps KBC going’ is not such a difficult question to answer. Its exemplary host Amitabh Bachchan, and its family-engaging format, one that’s full of positivity and interactivity, are the two cornerstones on which this 19-year old property rests. But over the years, KBC has acquired more value than just what its content is. And that’s the more interesting aspect to explore here.

    We live in times when it’s a matter of days that something that seemed so fresh until very recently, begins to look stale and jaded. This is happening with brands, ads, films, TV shows, cricket, everything. Product lifecycles of media products have reduced in general, as a distracted consumer moves from one to the other in a tearing hurry. In this context, KBC provides a certain comfort in the familiar. It’s that one show you don’t need to wrap your head around and figure out.

    Comfort in the familiar is quite an under-rated media thought. Very few shows on Hindi television today can offer this value, because it takes a lot of time and effort for a show to acquire this status. Of the Hindi GEC shows currently on air, only KBC, Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah and Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai benefit from this idea. And all three have gone to be enduring successes, bucking the growing consumer demand for short-term programming.

    In all three, there’s a sense of togetherness and family-inclusiveness. They are ensemble shows, despite very strong lead protagonists helming them. It’s the collective nature of the three, where multiple characters (host and contestants in the case of KBC) keep the flame burning.

    But KBC has two advantages over the other two shows in this coveted list. One, it is on air for only about 13 weeks every year, making it much sought-after when it hits the telly. Two, its interactivity is organic and central to its premise. Knowing an answer, when a family of 4-8 members is sitting and watching together, can lead to a moment of pride. Therefore, KBC also fuels family conversations like no other show can.

    Would KBC have acquired these values with another host? Almost certainly not. The fit between Bachchan and KBC’s values can only be a freak once-in-many-years kind of happy accident. And that’s why, he keeps getting better with each season, fitting the show even more, by giving a part of himself to it.

    Ratings will tell us how well this season does, but KBC may have transcended that test in the last 2-3 seasons. May the legacy live on!

     

     

  • Riding high on the popularity of Taarak Mehta…, the channel is the #1 on time spent by viewer index, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Sony Sab: An Unusual Success Story

     

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    Even as the Hindi GEC category struggles to recover its lost glory inch by inch over the last year-and-a-half, there’s a special little story unfolding on the side. Sab TV (or Sony Sab, as it’s officially called) has grown almost 40 per cent in the last one year, to now emerge as the No. 2 Hindi GEC in the Pay TV segment in Urban HSM in the pre-KBC period. The channel has seen an upward surge in the months of July and August this year, overtaking more seasoned players like Zee TV and Colors, and competing well with the network flagship Sony Entertainment Television, which has big-ticket material like KBC on its side for 13 weeks now.

     

    The channel is by far the No. 1 channel on TSV (time spent by viewer), being about 30 per cent ahead of the category leader Star Plus on this engagement measure week-on-week. Star Plus is the leader on viewership, because of its significant Reach advantage over Sab, symptomatic of the former’s wider appeal vis-à-vis the latter.

     

    A deeper look at Sab’s viewership numbers can be fascinating. The channel’s Gujarat viewership is almost five times its UP viewership. The Mumbai to Delhi ratio is almost 2. Evidently, the channel manages to do much better in the Western markets, which have a higher proportion of Gujarati population in their viewer universe.

     

    This, of course, is attributable to the flagship show Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah (TMKOC). Now on air for more than 11 years, TMKOC contributes a staggering 83 per cent to the channel’s viewership. 58 per cent of the channel’s programming time is allotted to the show, across various original, repeat and rerun airings.

     

    The show has wallpaper-level presence on the channel. Sab benefits hugely from the non-prime time performance of TMKOC. Compared to Star Plus, which gets 51% of its viewership from the 7-11pm prime time, Sab gets only 30% of its viewership from it, thus relying heavily on the afternoon time band, where repeats of TMKOC do ratings that some of the big Hindi GEC shows will be happy to achieve in their original telecast in the prime time.

     

    Yes, Sab is a one-show channel. It has struggled to find a second big hit anywhere close to TMKOC’s stature. And it’s been 11 years now. There is a reasonably-robust second line of shows, led by Aladdin currently. But the stature of TMKOC dwarfs everything else Sab puts out.

     

    Breaking down the success of TMKOC is a matter of another detailed piece. But it can be briefly mentioned that the show goes well beyond being just another comedy show, and manages to integrate culture, values and family, eventually delivering a wholesome family entertainer, a genre which very few Hindi GEC shows can claim to have a foot in.

     

    How long can TMKOC remain at its peak? A conservative answer would be ‘at least another 10 years’. Its protagonist Jethalal, played by Dilip Joshi, has been the most-popular Hindi GEC character in India for years now, as per Ormax Characters India Loves. Character bonding ensures longevity, and TMKOC has very strong legs on that count.

     

    Sab went through an elaborate brand refresh (Hindi GEC’s category when-in-doubt activity) recently. The new proposition ‘Khushiyon Wali Feeling’ strikes the right chord, relying to SAB’s positivity and light-hearted charm as its differentiators in a melodramatic category.

     

    But currently, all the branding is just scenery for a channel that runs on the towering presence of a giant. If there was a second TMKOC, and that’s easier said than done, Sab will be the biggest Hindi pay channel by some distance. If that happens, it will be some success story to tell!

     

     

  • What Test cricket needs is a business model that does not depend much on TV ratings, writes Shailesh Kapoor

    Shailesh Kapoor: Test Cricket Championship: Survival Tactics?

    By Shailesh Kapoor

     

    In August 2019, the long-attempted ICC initiative of holding a World Test Cricket Championship finally took off. The two-year-long event, to be played over 27 bilateral Test series over a period of 19 months, will culminate in a finale Test at Lord’s on June 10-14, 2021, leading to crowning of the first-ever Test cricket champions.

     

    ICC’s attempts to hold a similar championship in the past were unsuccessful. The underlying complexities related to format and scheduling were too many to handle. But with some planning this time, ICC has managed to come up with a format that’s both feasible to execute and logically sound. One could quibble over elements of the format and how it falls short of symmetry, giving some teams an advantage over others. But in an elaborate tournament of this nature, this aspect is likely to be balanced out, and one should see the best two Test-playing nations compete in June 2021.

     

    The Test Championship is a purposeful attempt to bring some interest back into a highly-revered but increasingly-niche variant of the sport. The Test format, in which a match extends over a potential 30 hours of play spread over five days, is not aligned to evident media consumption trends across the world, whereby shorter attention spans and instant gratification have emerged as key expectations. Test cricket is laborious to watch for even the most diehard T20 viewers, and has virtually no traction in the sub-30 audience.

     

    Yet, there’s a connoisseur segment that exists, filling up the stadia for the more coveted games, like those in the Ashes, and enjoying the format for its sheer charm, and for the ebbs and flows that an ODI or a T20 game can rarely match. But the connoisseur segment is miniscule in size, and TV ratings worldwide don’t deal with connoisseurs of anything, let alone Test cricket.

     

    Yes, there’s a Test match once in a while that ignites the excitement in a wider audience, such as the enthralling third Test in the current Ashes series, which Ben Stokes won for the English team through a heroic batting effort on the fourth day, chasing down an unlikely total in the fourth innings.

     

    But most Test matches do not offer that level of excitement to extend the format’s appeal beyond its core connoisseur base. By introducing a Championship, ICC may have excited the connoisseurs even more, and probably brought in some fence-sitters. But it’s too early to analyse if the idea will increase ticket sales and ratings. The points system is not the easiest to crack either, unless you are a connoisseur, and that can act as an additional barrier in the first edition in particular. But at any rate, the championship cannot worsen ticket sales and ratings, and hence, is a good initiative nevertheless.

     

    What Test cricket needs is a business model that does not depend much on TV ratings. It is evident that the format will have to survive in the long run without TV ratings supporting it. Constant efforts to boost viewership can only be frustrating. If, instead, the focus shifted to finding more innovative revenue streams (and this could vary for different host countries), the debate around the imminent danger to the format may end after all.