I have just been disappointed with my channel surfing experience. This isn’t the first time and surely won’t be the last. Indian television is at its lowest ebb. Not surprisingly, the advertising rates are among the lowest in the world.
Making the idiot box smarter - adding intelligence!
I believe television today is simply too dumb! Most of the soaps tend to take generation leaps making some characters as old as 800years and counting. I guess it is time to use television as tool for information dissemination. Look at the videos of John Bird and John Fortune, about sub-prime crises and credit crunch. They use humour to make people aware about some aspects of happenings in the financial world that are, in all probability, soon going to make life miserable for common man.
Yet all we have managed is to put humour to some crappy idiotic use in prime-time news.
Possibly only Vir Das (below) and Cyrus Brocha have managed to entertain intelligently using humour on news channels.
Intelligence is waning - Channels please wakeup!
I guess this is but just one example. But I guess it should suffice as there is not much opinion against my views. It is time channels and advertisers realised that programming catering to intelligent audience tends to be sticky. The intelligent viewer is intelligent enough to come back to the program and builds a solid "discussion universe" around the program attracting more "intelligent-aspirers" to the fold.
In Sum
Its time to rethink about the customer, about our assumptions of their intelligence and relook at what we are offering to the world. In the long run, well made intelligent programs will create their following and will bring viewers back to the channel. I am sure by making programming relevant to the people the channels can create a sticky customer. Let us hope the channels have some "intel" inside their organisations! Now isn't it what advertisers want to pay quality bucks for?
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