Category: TV

By Shailesh Kapoor

 

While fiction has driven the core viewer base of Hindi GECs over the last two decades, non-fiction programming has gained increasing importance over time. Being celebrity-centric, non-fiction content in India is expensive. But its ability to get new audiences to a channel, and its ability to create excitement in the advertiser community, are reasons enough for channels to invest in this category of content aggressively.

 

But 2013 has not been the best year for non-fiction content. Many heavyweight shows have struggled to perform, despite being successes in their previous seasons, some as recently as 2012. Shows that had seasons averaging 2.5-4 TVR have struggled to cross the 1.5-2 TVR mark in 2013-14.

 

Examples can be found in plenty. KBC didn’t deliver in its seventh season. Currently on-air shows NachBaliye and Dance India Dance have been at viewership levels of about half their previous seasons. Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, a pioneering non-fiction format, struggled to make any impact whatsoever in its last season that ended in Jan 2013.

 

Some of the relatively younger formats (in terms of their on-air existence) such as India’s Got Talent, have done better. But otherwise, the writing seems clearly on the wall. Traditional non-fiction formats may not be here to stay.

 

You can attribute the failure of one season of a successful format to content execution. There have been non-performing seasons of Sa Re Ga Ma Pa in the past too, where the issues were evident at the jury composition level itself. But the show could bounce back in the following season after making corrections.

 

But the non-performance of the big daddies over the last year is certainly not attributable only to content. NachBaliye, for example, has the same format, anchors, jury and treatment style as the last season. Yet, it is rating 40% lower this time, on the same platform in the same slot.

 

So what’s changed over half a decade? The answer is: A generation. It is well-researched that non-fiction’s core audience are the youth (though KBC has stood out as an exception to that). If we take 20 as a reasonable age of the bull’s eye audience of most non-fiction formats, and juxtapose it with the marriageable age in India, we get this fascinating piece of insight: That many early adopters of non-fiction shows that went on-air in India in 2006-09 would have got married in the last two years. (In case you are unaware of the dramatic impact of marriage on TV content preferences of an Indian viewer, I urge you to explore this fascinating subject).

 

The new core audience of non-fiction programming today is someone who was a teenager (13-16) when these formats first went on-air. These teenagers are now into college, and how many college students cling onto what they thought was cool in their school days?

 

Why would it suddenly all show up as an issue in 2013? Difficult to say, but the idea of 2013 being a tipping point is plausible.  After all, non-fiction content really gathered steam in India in 2006, and hence, the seven-year generation rule would suggest that 2013 was set to be the critical, watershed year.

 

I’m sure the leading channels will find the solutions over the next year or two, with a mix of new formats and refurbished versions of the existing ones. The one who does it the best will have a lot to gain.

 

A chapter of non-fiction content in India has closed, and a new one is opening up. Let’s now wait to find out who the authors are.

 

Shailesh Kapoor is founder and CEO of media insights firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. The views expressed here are his own. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor

 

 

By Shailesh Kapoor

 

Rahul Gandhi’s interview on Times Now, telecast first on Monday, has dominated the news landscape this week. Rival channels too were forced to cover the interview extensively (without video footage), given its importance in the year of the General Elections and also the reactions some of Gandhi’s comments evoked, especially those on the 1984 and 2002 riots in Delhi and Gujarat respectively.

 

Much has been written about how dysfunctional the interview was, given that most answers did not match the questions they were answers to. As an exercise, I read the transcript, published in The Times Of India on Tuesday, in a read-a-random-question-and-then-read-a-random-answer way, and it made no less sense than the original transcript read in sequence.

 

It would have clearly been Rahul Gandhi’s decision to do a big TV interview. I think he was ill-advised about the journalist he should choose for it. When you have nothing specific to say, Arnab Goswami is the last person you want around you. With no room given to explicate, Gandhi’s ideas came across as inward and theoretical, than pragmatic and action-oriented.

 

But what has fascinated me about the interview is the ability of one interview to generate so much commercial media and social media talk, especially when nothing new was said in it anyway. It is not difficult to understand the frenzy. All you need to think is: When did I last see a proper, classical interview on television in India?

 

My attempt to answer that question was rather embarrassing. All I could think of was Koffee With Karan interviews, Bollywood interviews on a dozen Zoom-like channels, sportsperson interviews and Arvind Kejriwal. A few corporate bigwigs (Ratan Tata) and foreign leaders (Aung San Suu Kyi) from recent times then came to mind. And that was the end of my interview recall.

 

Most Bollywood interviews are not even interviews. They are casual chats, often with a limited purpose, like promoting a film. The reluctance of the political class to give interviews (not counting short chats with journalists used to clarify their position on an issue) is well known.

 

In 2012, Narendra Modi walked out of a Karan Thapar interview in the first three minutes, unhappy with persistent questioning on the 2002 riots (Video). Prabhu Chawla, one of the most seasoned journalists of our times, had a tough time getting political heavyweights on his immensely popular show Seedhi Baat, and had to resort to entertainment celebs (all the way to Rakhi Sawant) to keep the show running.

 

The reluctance of the political elite here seems to be a curious mix of arrogance and insecurity. Arrogance that makes them feel they are not answerable to people at large, and insecurity arising out of lack of confidence, in their work or speech or both. That it has happened over almost three decades now is another testimony to the well-accepted fact that we don’t have visionary leaders anymore.

 

Much as Rahul Gandhi made a joke of himself on the interview that he was hoping to use to build his image, some credit must be given to him for at least exploring the idea of an interview.

 

Many channels have been sending covert and overt feelers to political parties for a US-Presidential-style televised debate ahead of the General Elections, between Modi and Gandhi. It’s just wishful thinking. Even if we get Modi to give an 80-minute interview like Gandhi, we would have come a long way in breaking the tradition of media snub that senior politicians have mastered in this country.

 

TV Trails is a weekly column written by Shailesh Kapoor, founder and CEO of media insights firm Ormax Media. He spent nine years in the television industry before turning entrepreneur. The views expressed here are his own. He can be reached at his Twitter handle @shaileshkapoor