Yet again a sensitive question, but answered in no ambiguous words by Dr Bhaskar Das in the October 19 edition of Das ka Dum. Read on…
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Q. As someone who is not originally from Mumbai or Delhi, do you sometimes find that our news and entertainment content in English and Hindi alienates the rest of the country?
A. You haven’t specified the relevance of your observation in respect of which medium. I perceived that it is skewed towards the TV medium. Assuming that, I may mention that in a country like India with a mosaic of culture and diversity, no medium and content can be everything to everyone. Besides, in an age of hyper-personalisation, consumers prefer unique content by format, by language and region. If media owners do not take cognisance of this reality, more alienation with the target audience. I think both English and Hindi news and entertainment channels are doing their best to serve their audience but one size fits all is a dream of the past and a sure recipe for failure. Having said that, I won’t deny that there is always scope for improvement but it is difficult to be objective in subjective matters. After all, it’s more art than science, though AI/ML or data literate content design can inject some science into the art.